What is worth paying close attention to during construction work and looking for areas that can be organized better, executed faster, or more cost-effective? Acronyms like ERP and BIM are taking up more and more space around constructions, but a particular area is worth considering. Resource management, which according to Construction Dive (https://www.constructiondive.com/spons/construction-asset-tracking-software-competitive-advantage-or-a-necessity/573629/ ), is the second-largest cost factor (behind payroll), and the key to this puzzle. However, effective management of this process is highly demanding.

One of such areas is the rental of small equipment. Very often, during the realization of particular construction projects, we have a set of companies supplying us with the equipment/machinery. Each one is the responsibility of the lessee, and each one has to bill the supplier. Frequently the equipment is operated by a subcontractor. The chain of people is considerable, and the responsibility for a given area on the construction site equals settling accounts with each participant. In such a case, it is not surprising that more spreadsheets are created to help in this task.

Solution

Nevertheless, perhaps there is a solution to do this in another way. Ideally, the on-site coordinator would have all the information available for management purposes, but the execution of the rental process would be delegated to the end-users. That would allow them to focus on the most relevant activities while improving the flow of information. The AMAGE system is such a solution considering the rental of small equipment. We facilitate all of these activities while providing essential information to the people responsible for the process management.

Why Suppliers’ Apps Are Not Always a Good Solution?

Of course, the market can not stand the void. Individual rental companies emerge with solutions that allow rental and management of the equipment. However, they have several crucial limitations. It is worth keeping in mind that each such solution works best for the offer of a particular supplier, and even if there is a possibility to add devices of other suppliers, the settlement mechanisms will not be shared among them. AMAGE allows you to manage all of your leases within one system and holds individual suppliers accountable for the equipment provided only by them. The second advantage is the integration of the IT systems. For a corporate user, essential is the availability of data and the seamless integration with authorization systems (logging). Crucial is also a consistent system, which will provide data for multiple construction sites simultaneously while giving a better insight into utilization.

It is worth thinking about a solution dedicated to your purposes, especially since the Lite version is easy to run and allows you to quickly supervise the circulation of the devices.

Area of Small Equipment in AMAGE system

The AMAGE system for small equipment allows the full information flow to be traced from the moment the rental need arises, through the order, supplier's contact, delivery, and inspection of the equipment on-site and the entire internal rental period. The reversed direction of the process - from the moment of requesting a return - is also supported. Due to that, all information regarding the rental object is in the system, which makes it possible to track and calculate all the costs related to the equipment's rental and identify cost sources.

Settlements and Integrations

A notable advantage is the automation of communication between the ordering party and the equipment supplier. All equipment can be ordered - after the approval of the site coordinator - directly from the system. The supplier receives notifications with data necessary for the delivery. Further on, we enable him to enter the declared deliveries directly into the system, automating all the steps that were previously performed by sending e-mails between the participants. Checking deliveries can be done by the client or by the supplier's representative. The delivery documents generated in this case, along with the signatures, are forwarded to both the customer and the supplier. The system starts the rental calculation and provides information about the current costs. In these cases, supplier-definable settlements' data are taken into account, such as variable rental costs depending on the rental's duration and the suspensions of the settlements (weekends, holidays, etc.). Generated settlements' reports allow for effective control over them with the supplier and individual end-users (teams, brigades, subcontractors).

Equipment Failures and Replacements

The system also allows you to overcome the range of inevitable failures, maintenance activities, and malfunctions during the lease. The current user of the device has the opportunity to report a fault, or a defect, which will be automatically forwarded to the supplier for repair. The administrator can specify the reported events, which stop the rental calculation with complete control of the costs of rentals that are not properly used. The system also facilitates the inevitable replacement of the equipment by automating the entire replacement process and accounting for the detailed rental of returned and newly replaced equipment. Moreover, the data is linked to individual devices, and we can track the history of all events for a given device throughout the entire period of AMAGE system use.

Full Control Over Rental and Costs

The system allows full tracking of the current owner of the leased equipment with the possibility of changing the cost center during the lease. This activity is performed automatically with the participation of all persons involved in the process (the person transferring the equipment, the new tenant, and the coordinator of this area on-site). That allows for complete lease tracking and cost center accounting. It also eliminates the problem of identifying the current user and finding the equipment, which was previously a problem throughout the task's duration.

What’s in the Lite Version and How to Get Started

The AMAGE Lite version is an abbreviated version of the system which has a simplified set of features and does not require a system deployment stage for operation. The user can prepare an initial dataset, define users and monitor the circulation of devices within the enterprise. The system can be upgraded to the full version at any time.

What Do You Get By Choosing Lite or the Full Version of the Amage System?

To sum up, AMAGE solutions allow efficient management of the area of renting or leasing of both formwork and small equipment. Settlements between the suppliers and the subcontractors allow identification of material flow and cost sources. All this supports workers directly on the construction site. We speed up operations and minimize the time needed to perform these activities, which is crucial in the current organizational situation on construction sites