Background
In the world of commercial plant and equipment, tracking and management solutions have never been a more integral part of the operating mix. Keeping assets safe from thieves and monitoring machine performance are two key aspects in a plant operator’s day. A watchful eye falls to leading industry experts such as Satrak, who have built an enviable reputation as specialists in the tracking and telematics products sector focusing solely in the plant arena.
Since 2004, Satrak’s products including ‘plant security system’, ‘plant view system’ and ‘vehicle tracking’ have all become synonymous with major plant operators as the de facto systems to monitor, track and trace their assets. The product development teams at Satrak have invested heavily in bringing GPRS and GSM technologies together to give customers tailored solutions built to work in the harshest of working environments. Ruggedised, versatile and compact hardware, resilient software and cloud-based control platforms have all contributed to Satrak’s position within the UK marketplace.
The Challenge
GPRS connectivity is an important part of the product and service mix. To deliver reliable and cost-effective airtime, Satrak have turned to Wireless Logic as their specialist M2M managed services partner. In their eight years of operation, Satrak have experienced the good, bad and indifferent, working with the networks directly as well as independent specialists.
Dan Walton, Satrak’s Managing Director explains: “Our focus on asset security and telematics is to deliver the right solution bespoke to each customer. Whilst in some cases one size fits all, we are more and more looking to create tailored packages that meet specific requirements of the operator. Our time has to be invested in the hardware and software… GPRS connectivity simply has to work, and in Wireless Logic, we’ve found an organisation that finally ticks all the boxes. To us it’s about having a choice of networks, uniform and competitive pricing of SIM subscriptions, and a control platform that works.”
The Solution
The control platform that Satrak’s Dan Walton refers to is Wireless Logic’s SIMPro. This Platform as a Service (PaaS) is key to Satrak being able to monitor the performance of their SIM estate. “It gives us control in an area of the business where nasty surprises can sometimes happen. Rogue use of data has, in the past, resulted in ridiculously large monthly data bills. We monitor unusual activity and can then interrogate our SIM estate to identify specific units where operator misuse may have occurred. We have the ability to provision SIMs at point of installation, as well as switching off when the need arises,” continues Dan Walton.
Justin Godfrey-Cass, Business Account Manager for Wireless Logic notes that Satrak’s success also results from a strong commercial awareness of the operators’ businesses. “Working with Satrak, we have admired how they’ve developed a range of pricing models which meet the wide needs of customers, large and small. And to achieve this, we worked with Satrak to provide a number of tariffs, across multiple networks, that dovetail well into their cost models. Currently, the bulk of SIM subscriptions are equally spread with Orange and Vodafone and through our SIMPro platform, Satrak can monitor the performance and reliability of each network through one window.”
Whilst the recession keeps UK plc construction under pressure, the performance, safety and security of plant machinery remains mission-critical for organisations across the country. Satrak and Wireless Logic are keeping owners in touch with their assets, watching and monitoring their performance and location 24/7, and delivering cutting-edge technology to optimise their output
It’s a tough environment both physically and commercially. Our range of security and telematics solutions have evolved and will continue to improve as operators’ needs dictate. Through years of indifferent service, we have now found a connectivity and managed services supplier for M2M and I’m delighted in what we get from Wireless Logic. I like their estate monitoring platform, I like their pricing structures, and I like their attitude. Could I ask for more?