The dark winter months present more opportunities for plant thieves to steal equipment. Construction sites and depots are often located in remote, poorly lit areas, allowing criminals to hide under the cover of darkness. Plant thieves are all too aware that many construction sites shut down for two weeks over the festive period, often with little security and with kit parked up unoccupied.
It’s important to make sure that your sites and machinery are secure, not only with an AMI security solution but also conventional security and visual deterrents. The easiest of which is the entry and exit points to your sites, making it increasingly difficult to gain access to a site and remove any assets or machinery.
Keeping areas well light and protected by clearly visible CCTV cameras are also deterrents, making the thieves think twice and possibly look for a softer target.
Stolen equipment causes a financial burden for construction companies and slows down progress on the job site because they have to seek out and purchase new equipment when a theft happens.
AMI’s top tips for securing sites and equipment:
- AMI Tracking Device utilising both immobilisation features (Keypad, remote, scheduled or Dallas key) and alerts inclusive of out of hours usage and battery disconnection alerts sent directly to the customer via email or SMS.
- Gates should be of heavy construction, with hinge pins spot welded to prevent easy removal.
- Keep a record of the serial numbers on all tools and equipment.
- Case-hardened chains used with padlocks should be thick enough to resist torching, saws or bolt cutters.
On a daily basis AMI Group are helping customers across the UK to locate and recover stolen equipment as a result of the use of state-of-the-art tracking devices which utilise GPS, GSM and RF technology. Once an AMI tracking device is fitted to a piece of machinery, customers can logon to the AMI Nexis web-based portal to establish its destination in the event of it being stolen.
One of our top tips is to turn on “ignition alerts” to any hard-wired telematics units, AMI actively encourages our users to turn on these alerts over the winter period to instantly notify key personnel in the event somebody tries to start a machine unauthorised.
More and more customers are now opting for Keypad immobilisation features when protecting their assets with AMI Group. Locking down the asset until an authorised code is typed into the keypad. This works alongside the VT tracking solution offering the ultimate barrier in theft prevention. Keypad immobilisation is also compatible with the award-winning Asset+ tracking solution providing triple layer protection the first company to offer this and exclusive to AMI Group, ensuring you – the user – a full range of benefits including asset management, after theft recovery and theft prevention.
Be proactive now and keep your sites and equipment safe!
