# Heavy Equipment Dealers & Field Service

GPS tracking for heavy equipment dealers: service calls recorded by geofence, crane and welder hours from IOX-AUXM, and proof of visit for warranty claims.

Source: https://www.highpointgps.com/industries/equipment-dealers-field-service
Last updated: 2026-09-22

An equipment dealer's fleet is a mix that no single report fits. Field service trucks carry a crane, a compressor and a welder on the deck; parts vans run between the branch and a job site; lowboys deliver sold and rental machines; demo units leave the lot for a week at a time. GPS tracking for heavy equipment dealers ties all of it to the customer and the machine. A geofence around each mine, quarry, farm and job site records when a service truck arrived and left, which gives the service manager a time on site for every call that matches the work order. An IOX-AUXM module on the GPS tracking device reads the truck's own circuits, so the record also shows when the crane was raised, the compressor ran and the welder drew power, and the technician's hours split into travel and work without a paper timesheet. A lowboy delivering a machine gets a delivery record with the arrival time and the drop location, and a battery tracker on a demo unit shows where it is and whether it moved while it was out. When a manufacturer questions a warranty repair, the visit, the time and the equipment used are in the High Point GPS platform. High Point GPS sets all of this up on one platform for dealers across Canada and the United States, with dash cams and driver ID where the dealer wants them.

## Common problems

- Service calls billed from a technician's memory of when they arrived, with the customer disputing the hours on the invoice
- No way to separate travel time from billable time on a call two hours from the branch
- Warranty claims questioned by the manufacturer with no proof of the visit beyond the technician's word
- Parts vans that make three trips for one job because nobody knows which van is closest to the site
- Demo and rental units on customer sites with the dealer unsure where they are or whether they have been used
- Crane, compressor and welder use on the service trucks that is never recorded, so the equipment cost is never charged to the job

## Highlights

- Arrival and departure records at every customer site from geofences, matched to the work order for the call
- Crane, compressor and welder run time read from the truck's own circuits through IOX-AUXM auxiliary inputs
- Technician hours split into travel, on-site and shop time, with driver ID from an NFC key on the GPS tracking device
- Delivery records for sold and rental machines from the lowboy's trip, with the drop location and time
- Battery trackers on demo units and rental equipment that report location daily and on movement
- Warranty visit proof that pairs the site geofence, the technician and the equipment used on the truck
- Nearest-van dispatch for parts runs, with the live map showing which vehicle can reach the site first
- AI dash cams on service trucks and lowboys for incident review, with driver-facing distraction alerts where wanted

## A service call that records itself

The service manager's argument with a customer usually comes down to two numbers: when the technician arrived and how long they stayed. A geofence around each customer site records both from the truck itself. The call to a quarry on Tuesday shows the truck entering the pit road at 8:27, leaving at 14:05 and the two trips to the truck for parts in between. The technician's work order carries the same times. When the customer's site clerk says the truck was there for three hours, the record answers the question, and the invoice stands. High Point GPS sets the geofences up from the dealer's customer list, and new sites are added as work orders come in.

The same geofence record feeds the manufacturer's warranty process. A warranty repair on a machine at a mine two hours away needs to show the visit happened, when, and what was done. The site arrival and departure, the technician's ID from the NFC key, and the crane and welder run times from the truck's circuits are all part of the trip. When the manufacturer's warranty administrator asks for proof of visit, the dealer pulls a report for that call rather than a photocopy of a timesheet, and the claim is paid on the first submission instead of the third.

## Crane, compressor, welder: reading the truck's circuits

A field service truck is a mobile shop, and the equipment on the deck is what the dealer charges for. An IOX-AUXM module on the GPS tracking device reads up to four of the truck's own circuits: the crane's power take-off, the compressor clutch, the welder output and a fourth of the dealer's choosing. Each one becomes a timestamped on and off record in the trip. The service manager sees that the crane was raised for forty minutes at the quarry and the welder ran for an hour and ten minutes, and the job is charged accordingly. The equipment's own hours also drive its maintenance, which is how a compressor gets serviced before it fails on a site.

Technician time follows the same record. With driver ID from an NFC key, each trip is attributed to the technician who drove it, and the day divides into driving, on site inside a geofence, and at the branch. The split between travel and billable time is a report rather than an estimate, and the dealer decides whether to bill travel at a different rate or absorb it. A technician who spends more of the day driving than the route requires shows up in the report, and the dispatcher can look at how calls are grouped.

![Diagram of a field service truck with four IOX-AUXM auxiliary inputs labelled crane PTO, compressor, welder and beacon, each with its run time on a call, beside chips for site geofence times, technician ID and travel versus billable hours.](https://www.highpointgps.com/images/guides/equipment-dealers-field-service.webp)

*The circuits an IOX-AUXM module reads on a dealer's service truck, and how each run time joins the site geofence and the technician's ID on the work order.*

## Lowboys, parts vans and demo units

A machine sold or rented is not delivered until it is on the customer's site, and the lowboy's trip is the record. The trip replay shows the tractor leaving the yard with the trailer, the route it took and the arrival inside the customer's geofence, with the drop time and location. A customer who says the machine arrived a day late, or was left at the wrong entrance, is answered from that record. Battery trackers on the machines themselves continue the story: a rental excavator on a farm reports its location daily and moves on the map if it is taken somewhere else. A demo unit out for a week shows where it went.

Parts vans run the errands that keep technicians working. A live map of every van and every service truck lets the parts counter send the nearest van to the site rather than the one that happens to be back at the branch. A technician waiting on a hydraulic hose knows when it will arrive. Routing across the day's stops cuts the mileage on a van that visits six job sites. Fuel-card integration matches the fuel purchased to each vehicle, which closes the gap between what the vans burn and what the branch is charged for.

## Dash cams and the drive between sites

Service trucks and lowboys spend their days on mine haul roads, farm lanes and highways, often loaded and often in a hurry. An AI dash cam on each one records the road ahead, and a driver-facing camera flags distraction and fatigue when the dealer wants that view. When a lowboy is involved in a collision with a load on the trailer, the road-facing footage is the first document the insurer asks for, and it is retrieved by event from the High Point GPS platform rather than pulled from a memory card. Driver scoring on hard braking, speeding and cornering applies to a fleet that carries a crane on its deck and a machine on its trailer.

Maintenance for the fleet runs on engine hours and mileage, with fault codes reaching the shop as the truck logs them. Electronic DVIR in the driver app puts the pre-trip inspection on the tablet the technician already carries, and a defect on a lowboy's brakes or a crane's outriggers reaches the shop before the truck leaves. For a dealer that also services its own rental fleet, the same engine-hours data from GPS tracking devices on the machines schedules their service too, and the rental return inspection is done in the same app.

## FAQ

### How does the system record a service call on a customer site?

A geofence around the site records the service truck's arrival and departure to the minute, and the technician's ID from an NFC key attributes the trip. The auxiliary inputs add crane, compressor and welder run times. Together they give a time on site and an equipment record that match the work order.

### Can it separate travel time from billable time?

Yes. Each technician's day divides into driving, time inside a customer geofence and time at the branch, from the trip record. The report shows travel and on-site hours per call and per day, and the dealer chooses how to bill each, whether travel is charged at a lower rate or absorbed on a service contract.

### Does it provide proof of visit for warranty claims?

The site arrival and departure, the technician's ID and the equipment run times from the truck's circuits are all in the trip record. A report for a single call or a single machine gives a manufacturer's warranty administrator the visit, the time and the equipment used, in one document.

### How are demo and rental machines tracked?

A battery tracker on the machine reports its location daily and when it moves, with no wiring. For machines the dealer services, a GPS tracking device or rugged GPS tracking device reads engine hours and fault codes as well, which schedules maintenance and shows whether a demo unit was run while it was out.

### What does the technician have to do differently?

Tap the NFC key when starting the truck and complete the pre-trip inspection in the driver app on their tablet. Site arrival, equipment run times and travel time are recorded by the GPS tracking device and its auxiliary inputs without any input from the technician, and the work order is filled from those records.