[Aditya]

JCB India has unveiled JCB Livelink - a telematics technology which allows the user to remotely monitor his machine. This system provides information on service, operation and security of machines.



JCB claims that with LiveLink, manufacturers, customers and dealers will now have a better control on their equipment usage.



JCB Livelink provides alerts on real time location, maintenance alerts, machine and fleet hours, etc. giving the user control of the machine from any location. The company claims that this will assist in ensuring that the machines are operated at correct times and helps to protect them from theft.

Livelink functions:

• Service - Accurate hours monitoring results in improved maintenance planning as machines can be maintained at the most convenient time for the user's operation.
• Operation - Fuel reporting system enables operators to see actual fuel consumption, which results in improved control of fuel stocks and planning of fuel orders.
• Security - Users can track the location and also receive the tow away alerts.
• The health of the machine can also be monitored for any malfunction
• Utilisation can be improved and fuel costs can be saved by identifying and removing wasteful idle time.

The user can monitor the machine through SMS, Email or by visiting the JCB Livelink site.

[599gto]

As they say better late than never. Other manufacturers have introduced similar techs long back, JCB is probably the last of the lot with Hitachi giving company to introduce wireless equipment monitoring technology.

JCB is like the Maruti Suzuki of the earth moving equipment world, people buy JCBs because that's what everyone they know is buying, JCB's equipments lack quality, technology and longetivity, but what you get in exchange is unmatched service and dealer support and cheap cost of acquiring and ownership.

CAT, Komatsu, Volvo, Liebherr etc are catching up fast, and I am sure JCB is now getting into thinking mode.

Coming back to the technology, I happen to own a few Komatsu, CAT, and Volvo excavators, backhoe and articulated loaders and have been using Komatsu's KOMTRAX, and CAT's Cat Connect equipment monitoring systems for a while now, they are extremely intelligent and robust systems which perform their jobs perfectly. They are very convenient for fleet owners!

Co-incidently I have never used Volvo's Care Track system, even though my machine is equipped with it, primarily because that particular machine is used on our own site and is under constant supervision. I'll give it a try sometime soon though!