Over the course of the past eleven years, I have worked with hundreds of land owners and land managers that use heavy equipment to improve wildlife habitat, increase livestock grazing capacity, as well as for agricultural crop production.  Each of these interested parties spend a tremendous amount of time going out to job sites to assess the progress of their heavy equipment projects.  On small scale projects, it is easy to determine progress by simply driving out to the job site; however, this may not be feasible on many large scale projects, and their progress can be much more difficult to evaluate.  In these instances, people must spend thousands of dollars on aerial photography and analysis so that they can quantify what was actually performed on the ground.  This approach is not only costly but also takes a very long time to complete.  The lag-time associated with quantifying heavy equipment projects can result in massive delays associated with government cost-share reimbursement. 

Aside from evaluating the progress of heavy equipment projects is the topic of payment for the actual heavy equipment work.  This topic seems to come up every time I visit with either a land manager or the manager of a heavy equipment company.  Land managers almost always want to pay by the acre so that they are not left to the mercy of heavy equipment contractors.  Heavy equipment contractors almost always want to be paid by the hour to avoid taking a loss in the event of unforeseen complications.  Finding a middle ground between these two arguments is very difficult.  With the inability to quickly and easily estimate acreage treated and the reliance on tractor hour meters it becomes even more difficult.  Heavy equipment operators have always argued that time is the only reliable way to price out a project since acreage is so hard to estimate.  This argument made a lot of sense to me until I heard a story told by an unscrupulous heavy equipment operator that bragged about going out to the job site in the morning, turning on the tractor, and leaving.  At the end of the day, he would return to turn off the tractor.  The whole time he was running-up the hour meter on the tractor, which would result in him getting paid for work that was never performed.

One solution that has appealed to land managers overseeing large heavy equipment projects is the use of Global Positioning Systems (GPS) to track where the heavy equipment was used.  The easiest way to use this technology is to install an inexpensive GPS receiver in the tractor and collect a “GPS Tracklog” of everywhere the equipment went.  Unfortunately, this approach does not identify where an implement was engaged and disengaged, so it is impossible to estimate the number of acres treated.  Some land managers have tried installing more complex GPS systems that allow the heavy equipment operator to only map where they were implementing a treatment and not where they were simply traveling with the implement disengaged.  This approach was not successful because it requires that the heavy equipment operators get trained in how to use sophisticated equipment.  Due to the fact that the vast majority of heavy equipment operators are not familiar with this type of technology, it was almost impossible for them to use the GPS equipment properly.  This improper use resulted in unreliable data and eventually the abandonment of the technology altogether.

Taking all of these things into consideration, I decided that the only way to solve these problems was to develop an innovative new GPS software that would make it easy for untrained heavy equipment operators to collect the type of data needed to quickly evaluate all agriculture-related heavy equipment projects.  Landitude Land Manager: Heavy Equipment (HE), not only records where heavy equipment was used but also where the implement was engaged and where it was disengaged.  To solve the problem associated with tractor hour meters, the software records time spent implementing a treatment, time not treating, and time stopped.  To further simplify the lives of land managers and managers of heavy equipment companies, the software instantly produces a report that can be used to see what each operator has accomplished for individual days as well as the job-to-date.  This report breaks down everything from acres treated to percent of time stopped and for what reason.

The reports generated by Landitude HE will be beneficial to both the land managers as well as the heavy equipment contractors.  These reports answer the following questions:

•    What date was the project started?

•    How many hours have been spent on the project to-date?

•    How many acres have been treated to-date?

•    What is the average number of acres treated per hour?

•    Where are we loosing productivity (non-treating, equipment malfunctions, refueling, field meetings, breaks, etc.)?

•    How many hours is XYZ operator putting in per day?

•    How many hours is XYZ operator actually treating versus stopped or traveling with the implement disengaged?

•    Is one operator performing below/ above expectations?  

Landitude HE is easy enough for all operators to use (regardless of educational background).  As a result, the data will be collected correctly and therefore can be used reliably to evaluate the progress of all heavy equipment projects.  An additional benefit of using the HE software is that the data can be incorporated into Geographic Information Systems (GIS) databases so that land managers can keep detailed records on when and where they have implemented various heavy equipment practices. The data files and reports generated by Landitude HE can also be emailed to the USDA and other government agencies to speed up cost-share reimbursement.

I am confident that this software will benefit any organization that uses heavy equipment for agricultural purposes.

Eric J. Redeker
President, Landitude Incorporated