If you’re one of the more than 3.7 million construction businesses operating in the United States, you understand how essential having the right equipment is for your job.
Many construction businesses think they’re safe from thievery as they don’t operate like traditional retail companies. Unlike retail stores where products can be snuck in and out, it seems nearly impossible to move a multi-ton piece of machinery.
However, heavy machinery theft is a problem that plagues construction sites across the country. This leads to millions of dollars lost each year.
When heavy machinery theft is plaguing your area, keeping your equipment safe is crucial to preventing loss of income. Keep reading to learn how to deter thieves from your job site.
Create Protocol
Before you start to implement anti-theft measures on your job site, you’ll need to ensure that you do the necessary research to keep your equipment safe.
Many aren’t stealing equipment to use it for their own business. Instead, heavy machinery is stolen, disassembled, and sold for parts. In other cases, the equipment is placed in a shipping container, never to be seen again.
Start by looking into reports on the most common pieces of heavy equipment stolen from sites. This helps ensure you can prioritize specific machines to keep them safe.
Another tip to ensure your protocol is practical is to go straight to the source. Many career thieves have spoken with police and reporters to discuss their tactics and what they look for when casing a construction site to steal from. Taking these thoughts into consideration is crucial to protecting your construction equipment.
Using these resources can help keep your site safe from thieves, so taking the time to create a protocol is crucial to preventing thievery. Ensure you distribute these standards to all the foremen you employ. This strengthens communication across all active and in-active sites and guarantees everyone is on the same page.
Ensure All Employees are Up-to-Date
As previously mentioned, ensure all employees on job sites and at your main office are up to date on the security protocol you’ve established. This step makes it easy to respond to inquiries or concerns employees raise, as everyone is referencing the same information.
For example, all employees should know how to detect and report any suspicious activity they notice around their job site. For example, if a worker notices the same van circling the construction site, they should know that it could be someone casing the equipment.
You’ll want to ensure they know who to report their concerns to, as this guarantees quick communication to prevent losses.
Similarly, all employees should know how to take inventory. This is crucial to understanding why they need to track what equipment they used on the job that day to keep track should something appear out of place.
Stay Aware of Scams
One of the most common misconceptions is that equipment theft only occurs at night, after hours. However, plenty of scams happen during the day while your site is bustling and dozens of workers are present.
One of the most common scams to be on the lookout for is fake repairmen. Often, they’ll show up to your site with a legitimate-looking truck, complete with a logo and phone number, and request to speak with a site manager. They’ll explain that a specific piece of equipment needs to be repaired and provide legitimate paperwork to prove it.
Busy with work, the foreman will sign off, likely not even giving it a second thought. The scammers will take the equipment and head out, never to be seen again.
Informing employees about scams is crucial. Also, providing a comprehensive list of equipment that is scheduled for service is vital, as it prevents foremen from accusing legitimate repairmen of trying to steal their machinery. Communication is crucial in these instances!
Invest in Security Measures
Next, you’ll want to improve the security measures on your lot. Though it can seem like a pricey upfront investment, it will save you the cost of new equipment in the long run. Similarly, you can take the equipment with you after the job is complete to use on different sites.
One of the most crucial pieces of equipment is cameras. This helps monitor the ongoing of your site after lock up while capturing anyone sneaking around your machines. It also works as a great deterrent, as thieves won’t want to target your site for fear of being caught.
When paired with cameras, motion-censored lights are a great way to scare off those looking to steal. These bright lights illuminate the space, thus making them more visible to the cameras and passers-by.
You can also invest in alarms that blare and alert you via phone alert if someone opens the door to your construction equipment or the entrance to your job site. This not only scares off the thieves as alarms indicate a coming police presence, but it also helps you stay up to date on what’s happening at your site when you’re not there, allowing you to call the police from your home.
Hire Night Watch
Another measure you can invest in is hiring private security to watch your site after hours. This is a great opportunity, as it ensures you have eyes on your equipment throughout the night.
Security guards take walks around the construction site to keep an eye out for anything suspicious. Also, if you have cameras, they can also watch the screens for activity.
Night guards are also beneficial in deterring vandals from your site, ensuring your equipment stays in ideal condition, which is an additional bonus.
You can train one of your employees to assume the night shift or hire private security. Investing money into protecting your construction job site is crucial. Your security guard should know how to handle emergency situations, as they may need to quickly respond to trespassers.
Purchase Trackers
One of the best ways to prevent costly equipment theft is to invest in trackers.
With so many options out there, there are endless opportunities to keep your equipment safe from being stolen. Not only can you hide GPS trackers in your machinery to always see its location, but you can also invest in more advanced options.
For example, there are tracking technology options that increase safety. You can invest in a tracker that sends an alert to your phone if it’s moved from a pre-determined radius. This means you’ll be immediately informed if your machinery is on the move.
You can also use an equipment tracker to update information in an app, ensuring that anyone who needs the details can access it with the touch of a button.
You can also use something known as window etching to help make it easier to track and recover stolen equipment. When thieves steal equipment, they’ll do what they can to get read of all identifiable facts. This includes plates and the VIN sticker in the machine.
Window etching ensures that if these factors are removed or altered, your VIN is still etched into the windows. This means when the machine is recovered, it can be traced back to your business.
Invest in the Right Equipment
Next, you’ll need to ensure the equipment you purchase is up to date with security measures.
For example, when it comes time to replace a backhoe, you may want to skip the model that needs keys to open the vehicle and opt for a coded pin pad instead. This makes it much more challenging to break into.
Some even come with the option to include a pin specific to the operator, meaning only a handful of people will have access to the key code. Those who enter the wrong number risk setting off an alarm or alert to a phone.
Make Your Equipment Recognizable
Another way to deter thieves from targeting your job site and heavy equipment is to make your machinery easily recognizable. Whether it’s a unique paint job or large company logos affixed to the sides, these steps make your equipment much less desirable.
Though adding these factors can cost you a bit, it will help save you money in the long run, as you won’t need to worry about replacing your construction equipment because it was stolen.
These identifiers make it much easier to track and recover equipment that’s been stolen.
You may want to take it one step further and mark each part that could be sold separately with an indicator. This helps recover pieces that have been disassembled and sold for parts.
Also, machinery with many identifying markers will deter criminals from targeting your site, as the likelihood of being caught is increased due to the markers on the equipment.
Make Inventory a Routine
Also, ensuring that taking inventory is a standard part of your routine on-site is crucial to tracking your equipment.
In some instances, equipment may sit on site for weeks at a time without use. This makes it easy to forget what you have on hand. Instead, regularly checking in on the machinery can help you identify construction site theft as soon as it occurs.
To start the inventory process, take photos of all equipment, vehicle identification numbers, license plates, and any other identifiable features on your machine.
Dedicate Time to Shut-Down
Finally, you’ll want to factor enough time to properly shut down your site into your daily schedule. Though it may seem unnecessary or a timewaster, dedicating the proper amount of time to closing your site down can help prevent theft.
Before you leave, ensure that no machines are hooked up to trailers, as this makes stealing these machines extremely easy and quick.
One of the best ways to do this is to line your equipment up in such a way that makes it impossible to steal one piece of equipment without moving another.
Smaller machines like generators, welders, and compressors aren’t as valuable to criminals, but because they are more easily transportable, they can also be the target of construction site theft.
For example, you can line all the machines up bumper to tail to make moving one specific machine challenging without access to the others. You could also place smaller equipment in the center of a circle of larger vehicles.
Report Theft Immediately
While all of these precautions can lessen the chances theft will affect your site, it isn’t a foolproof plan. Criminals are constantly evolving their techniques to outsmart new security measures.
As soon as you notice a piece of machinery is missing, you’ll want to contact the police and file a report.
Gathering all the information you have on hand about the stolen property before the police arrive on the scene is crucial. It ensures they’ll be able to respond quickly.
From your inventory, you’ll be able to provide photos and identifiable information about the stolen machine. Similarly, you can share the location of the machinery via tracker with the police to help them recover it quickly.
Prevent Heavy Machinery Theft
Though taking all these precautions may seem necessary if you live in a relatively safe area, theft can occur anywhere. Keeping your construction equipment securely on site ensures that you save time and money while completing jobs.
It’s always better to be safe rather than sorry!
If you’re ready to prevent heavy machinery theft on your job site, thanks to this guide, you’ll want to check out the rest of our website. There, you’ll discover more of the best business tips and tricks to help your company find success.
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