When you are a major company responsible for maintaining 10% of the Alberta’s roads during our harsh winters, there is no room for error. So when Ledcor approached Finning to come up with a solution to upgrade their GPS tracking system in the fall of 2016, time was of the essence. “We needed to upgrade from a 2G to a 3G cellular system, plus our existing system was being phased out and would no longer be supported. So we needed to find a solution and we were under a time crunch,” said Kyle Ross, equipment manager for Ledcor’s Highways Division. “The plow trucks were already out working, so logistically, we also had to do some juggling to coordinate getting the equipment installed on the fleet to meet our deadline.” There are 75 vehicles in Ledcor’s highway plow truck fleet and they are dispatched throughout northern Alberta’s highway network.
“The other challenge was that this wasn’t an out-of-the-box fix,” said Todd Weisenburger, major product support sales rep for Finning. “The connectivity system had to be customized to meet Ledcor’s needs and Alberta Transportation’s reporting requirements.” All reporting information must be submitted to Alberta Transportation electronically. “This data is critical for invoicing purposes,” said Todd. “The system has to have the capacity to track hours of operation, location, plow and wing position, vehicle speed and sanding information on every unit. To take full advantage of the system, Ledcor also wanted the ability to track the health utilization of its trucks and monitor maintenance and fuel burn.”
The Finning team worked closely with Ledcor and a third-party provider to customize a connectivity solution for tracking and monitoring the highway maintenance fleet. Key to the successful implementation was the strong relationship between Finning and Ledcor. “We had some challenges in pulling this solution together, but Finning’s customer service was 10 out of 10,” says Kyle. “Ledcor showed a lot of patience,” says Todd. “With their cooperation, we managed to get the system functioning and data reporting to Alberta Transportation in time to meet their crucial deadline.”
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