Industry pressures are changing the way equipment rental companies operate. In the past, many companies turned to reduction-in-force strategies to cut operating costs and remain viable and competitive. However, more innovative and competitive companies are focusing on Operational Excellence (OE) to further cut costs and increase productivity, performance and profitability. Innovative mobile technology is creating new opportunities for companies to improve OE and they will gain strategic advantage over complacent competitors. Find out about 7 operational costs that mobile technology can easily remove.

1. Administration costs

Paperwork is commonplace in environments such as Oil and Gas, Utilities and Equipment Rental. However, it is rapidly being displaced by digital technology because of the unsustainable costs and error rates of manual processing. By eliminating the administrative overheads of manual paper handling, your company can drastically reduce back-office costs and backlogs that cause lengthy delays and avoidable errors when processing equipment orders and returns.

2. Inventory Costs

Mobile applications provide accurate, up-to-date inventory data in real time. This provides visibility about what equipment is being stored and where, allowing your organization to manage your assets. This improves capital efficiency and drives down operational costs.

3. Distribution Costs

With online and offline capabilities, mobile application software allows field technicians to track, monitor and organize equipment movements across large geographical areas. Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) tags and barcodes ensure the risk of missing or inaccurate data is removed, along with their costs to the business. All of this ensures that field technicians can coordinate the distribution of equipment to locations where and when required, increasing utilization and helping drive revenue. By planning routes and movements in advance, companies can reduce journey times ensuring travel costs are cut.

4. Return Process

Rapid equipment return is key to meeting demand. Rental companies face the challenge of immediately identifying, assessing and recording missing and damaged items. Mobile technology can store product history to provide companies with accurate data on the last known condition of every item. This allows operations staff to process returns and manage accurate inventory levels immediately to optimize asset utilization.

5. People productivity

The implementation of mobile application technology saves each employee an average of 42 minutes per day. Eliminating the administrative overhead of manual paper handling drastically reduces back office costs and drives increased productivity. Mobile application technology ensures employees have more time to concentrate on the business operations that matter.

6. Days Sales Outstanding

Ineffective paper records and billing systems have a large impact on Day Sales Outstanding (DSO). Moving from paper to mobile application-based billing will typically reduce your DSO rate by 25 days. Real-time alerting of equipment returns, consignment stock movements, field service completion and equipment damage will significantly accelerate the generation of accurate client invoices.

7. Damaged Goods

Mobile technology gives you the capability to record damaged equipment, capture digital evidence and prepare auto-generated emails for forwarding to the customer. This cuts delays caused by downtime on damaged equipment and ensures outstanding bills can be dealt with efficiently.

To find out more about the benefits of mobile technology within the equipment rental industry, read our latest whitepaper on (how utilizing mobile technology can strip operational costs and improve margin). Alternatively, find out more about Spartan Solutions PHALANX mobile application software