Tech watch

As strict emissions regulations become more common, you’ll need to be able to prove that your fleet is running as clean as possible. A new reporting function within Cat® VisionLink—the telematics data analysis tool from Caterpillar®,—lets you monitor and track CO₂ emissions from construction equipment of all kinds.

Estimated read time: 5 minutes

Condition monitoring and telematics systems gather valuable data from your equipment. If you’ve used telematics or seen in action, you know a quick check of dashboards can tell you a lot: daily fuel usage, production data for a particular jobsite, or even the location of a machine that’s due for service.

But behind these snapshots, there’s even more insight. That’s where reports — in-depth summaries of fleet performance — come into play.

Targeted reports turn raw data into actionable information that can be pushed to team members. These individuals can then use it to improve company and site operations:

Let’s look at the capabilities of Cat® VisionLink as an example. Cat Digital Products Manager Shane McBride notes that a significant amount of intelligence goes into many of these reports, especially those involving utilization. 

He says, “Today’s reporting systems automatically gather raw data from telematics systems and other sources, then perform complex calculations. They can compensate for poor or missing data, too. In VisionLink’s case, each report can be configured to include key information while filtering out things that are less relevant to what you’re trying to accomplish.” 

And those reporting capabilities are constantly evolving. McBride explains, “VisionLink now offers over 20 different kinds of standardized reports. We get requests across the board from dealers and customers for new reports, such as DEF consumption or payload monitoring, so we’re always working to expand our reporting capabilities.”

Cost analysis reports are one of the newest additions to the stable of available VisionLink reports, McBride says. “These reports give you the ability to create a cost-per-hour metric measurement and look at the ways things like idle events can affect total machine operating costs.” 

He points to a recently added Avoidable Idle Time report as an example of the way advanced capabilities enter the VisionLink reporting library. 

“Our team worked directly with the Cat dealer in Germany, Zeppelin, to develop this report,” McBride remembers. “The dealer leveraged customer input to drive the contents of that report and give us feedback. The goal was to take advantage of VisionLink’s ability to track idle time and especially idling costs. This report helps customers understand how they can make small tweaks in behavior to reduce operating and runtime costs.” 

The ability to track cost factors based on accurate real-time data—not estimates or guesswork—is what allows you to identify where those small tweaks will have the most impact.

The Avoidable Idle Time report is all about setting a policy for idling a machine, then tracking how well operators adhere to it. Idle policy is important in much of Europe because machine shut down is mandatory if a machine idles for longer than a specified number of minutes. 

“And,” McBride cautions, “more countries are imposing carbon taxes or fines, and the idea of requiring a 10-15 minute idle time limit is starting to spread. Carbon emissions concerns are also beginning to pop up in the U.S. So, that’s what we’re targeting in that report. We really want to help customers see the costs of excessive idle diminish significantly.” 

McBride notes that idling cost factors will be different for every user, depending on how many and what kind of costs are included. “Is it just fuel plus maintenance costs, or are you including operator costs and depreciation, as well? There are lots of things to consider.”