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By Greg Bartlett

Theft in construction sites is no small problem. Everyday construction sites are robbed of tools and equipment all across America resulting in over a billion dollars in losses annually. And out of all the equipment stolen from sites only about 10 percent of it is ever found and returned to the rightful owners.

Besides losing money by having to replace the equipment, thefts on a job site can stop work temporarily, increase insurance rates for a company, and repeated thefts of their work areas can greatly damage a company’s reputation among customers and associates.

Managers try a variety of methods to limit theft on their sites. They may post warning signs or put up surveillance cameras and they may try to keep their equipment in as secure a place as possible. But what if the preemptive measures fail and your equipment is still stolen. As mentioned before, stolen equipment is rarely ever recovered by the owner, but you can greatly increase the chances of getting your equipment back by implementing tracking devices in your security program.

GPS tracking devices utilize satellite technology to keep precise track of their locations. By placing tracking devices discreetly on your work equipment you can be sure to know when and where your equipment may be taken if stolen. The accuracy of these GPS devices is astounding, making you aware of your equipment’s location within just a couple of feet.

Most tracking devices come with features that send alerts to you and security personnel anytime something suspicious happens with your equipment before or after normal work hours. That means you can know almost exactly when something has been taken and follow the route which it was taken after the robbery.

As you can see, this is a much more effective and efficient method of recovery than trying to hunt equipment down by using only man-powered efforts. This may potentially save your company a lot of man hours trying to find the stolen goods.

Obviously not every piece of equipment you own at your work site is a valuable enough item to stick a tracking device on. But as technology continues to improve and tracking devices become more and more affordable you may find that more work related items are worth being tracked just in case somebody decides to try to take them from one of your job sites.