25.02.2014

Progress on telematics standardisation

The Association of Equipment Manufacturers (AEM) and the Association of Equipment Management Professionals (AEMP), supported by a number of larger manufacturers and fleet owners, have announced agreement on the first step towards a new standard for the remote data collection and trouble shooting/telematics.

The agreement, which will not apply to cranes and which may also exclude some other niche product, covers 19 data points that will be form the basis for the new standard, it also defines a format for fault code information.

The original telematics data standard developed by AEMP will incorporate this new, wider industry standard. Data will be provided via a standardised server to server communication protocol, so that companies with mixed equipment fleets can input the data from all their equipment into their business software, without the need for customisation work across multiple telematics provider applications.

This is the first step towards developing a wider standard, with a method of updating and maintaining the standard in the face of fast moving technological developments set to start shortly.

Vertikal Comment

Telematics will play a major role in the equipment rental market over the next 10 years, allowing all manner of opportunities for companies to improve service and efficiency while enhancing returns through better utilisation, while enforcing safe working practices.

Having an increasingly wide industry standard that telematics providers and developers can work to will make it a lot easier for rental companies to import and evaluate all the data that these different systems will be providing.

If cranes and specialist equipment has not been included then manufacturers and industry associations around the world need to be working on a crane and powered access standard that adopts as much of this general standard as is possible, before the task of standardisation becomes too big or difficult.