According to insurance industry experts, the total value of construction equipment stolen annually is greater than $1 billion. Poor security, easy access to open cabs, access to equipment by a significant number of different employees and construction equipment like bobcats and backhoes that cannot be locked, make these types of vehicles easy targets.  The increased costs and wasted resources of stolen construction equipment include:

• Equipment replacement
• Lost productivity
• Project delays while equipment is replaced
• Higher insurance premiums and deductibles
• Time and expense of criminal investigations and prosecutions

According to National Equipment Register, Inc, only 10 to 15% of stolen equipment is ever recovered. This alarming figure is the result of many contributing factors, but the lack of a formal titling process, serial numbers that are often worn off and hard to read, and the nature of the used-equipment market are key factors.  

Every day, thieves are becoming savvier and finding new ways to defeat even the most sophisticated anti-theft systems.  Staffing construction sites with 24/7 security is a more reliable option for preventing theft; however, it is costly and with construction sites often encompassing large areas in remote locales, on-site security is far from foolproof.

Tools like the location-enabled tracking platforms built on Omnilink’s FocalPoint™ have the ability to track construction equipment both indoors and outdoors in real time to significantly increase the chances of recovering a stolen piece of equipment. Functionality like the enter/exit zones and schedules included in solutions built on FocalPoint™, enable users to receive automatic alerts if a vehicle leaves a specific area or is not in a specific location when required.