Linamar Corporation’s Skyjack division recently helped Wellington County, Ontario, Provincial Police (OPP) locate and recover stolen Skyjack machines with the help of the company's Elevate telematics.
In October, customers in the U.S. told Skyjack that their scheduled machine orders had not arrived. The OPP had already opened an investigation into the theft of a load carrying Skyjacks that a trucking business in Guelph had reported.
Skyjack immediately activated Elevate telematics on the missing machines to provide police with real-time information about the machines’ movement and activity.
“Elevate played a significant role in this success story,” says Mike Sheremeta, telematics business development associate at Skyjack. “The sophisticated back-end capabilities allowed us to easily track movement of the stolen machines, proving that beyond Elevate’s primary cost-saving benefits to customers, it’s also a very effective theft recovery tool. We were able to watch the movement of these machines online while they were hundreds of kilometers away from us.”
Skyjack’s Elevate telematics system provides critical alerts and various actionable insights into machine operation that help rental companies save money and time. Elevate promotes equipment longevity and helps contractors get their job sites back up and running faster without wasted labor and equipment rental hours. It’s available as an option on all Skyjack machines allowing customers access to information like battery health status, CAN data, alerts, and true usage through analysis of lifting, driving, load, and run time.
“As we continue to evolve the Elevate platform with additional features and functionality, it’s equally rewarding to see how the basic function of Elevate is protecting customer assets,” says Kurt Atchison, director of product management at Skyjack. “Elevate not only helps our customers improve operational efficiency, saving time and money, it also helps protect their investment from theft.”
Police said T.T. Transport, a fraudulent company from Quebec, used a stolen trailer labelled ‘Elite Logix Trailer’ to commit the theft. With Elevate as a prime aid, police recovered most of the equipment.
This isn’t the first time that Elevate helped find stolen machines. Skyjack customers frequently use Elevate to aid in recovery of their stolen machines all over the world.
The present matter is still under investigation. OPP have released a photo of the suspect and truck. They are asking anyone with information to call investigators at 1-888-310-1122. Anonymous tips can be left with Crime Stoppers at 1-800-222-8477.
Lift & Access is part of the Catalyst Communications Network publication family.
