Who owns your data? If you own a new Link-Belt crane, you do, according to Bill Stramer, vice president of marketing for the Lexington, Ky.-based manufacturer. As global crane owners are cautiously adopting telematics to manage maintenance, safety, geography and other risks, manufacturers such as Link-Belt are grappling with how to provide machine data in the absence of a wide-reaching industry standard.
Telematics, or the long-distance transmission of computer-based information, is a “tremendous opportunity to enhance your fleet management and, ultimately, your fleet performance,” said Stramer, who addressed 260 crane owners, suppliers and users on Nov. 12 at the World Crane and Transport Summit in Miami. But fleet owners have been cautious to adopt it, and those who have adopted it use data in many different ways, complicating the manufacturer’s job in serving up the information.