We are under one year away from CONEXPO-CON/AGG 2023. It’s been an unusual stretch of time in the three-year gap between shows. The world shut down (quite literally) in the days following the show in 2020, and the last two years have been overwhelmed by the pandemic.
The good news: The North American construction market is strong. The backlog of work shows no signs of letting up and a forecast of positivity is already starting to spread deeper into 2023. Global construction forecasts are just as bullish, with some, seeing the market doubling between now and 2030.
It’s a fascinating time to be part of digitization within the construction industry. And it’s a growth curve that will challenge how equipment owners will buy, manage and support their parts and equipment inventories. Continuing supply chain challenges, access to parts and extended equipment life cycles will evolve how we manage fleets, both large and small.
With the lead-up to CONEXPO 2023, the industry will be inundated with new product launches, shiny widgets and a wave of new concepts and solutions — some practical, and some that will never see the dirt of a jobsite.
Here are some things we’re tracking that we believe will impact the industry in the next year:
Telematics. Remote diagnostics and software updates. Apps. Blockchain. The proliferation of connected technology that leverages data and intelligence from heavy and compact iron will continue as a fleet management tool, as a business guidance tool, and as a job/productivity enhancer. The information provided by sensors, connected telematics systems and other technologies will continue to evolve how we look at fleet management and shorten the time and distance between the identification of an issue and its resolution.
The “Internet of Things”, or IoT, will drive this. Remote diagnostics, in particular, will help identify needed parts and resources before a technician ever goes out into the field. SmartEquip’s role in this is continued help for equipment owners to identify and source parts faster and connect the dots through a 20+ year cultivated network of manufacturers and suppliers.
The result: more uptime and greater productivity through technology.
Remember when we started emerging from the great recession just a few years ago, and we all talked about finally replacing equipment that we had let work in our fleets longer than we typically would have? That will be another unintended consequence of our current supply chain issues.
What does that mean? Smarter fleet management, proactive/preventive maintenance and parts sourcing will be needed – helping equipment owners keep that asset working longer than they may have originally planned before transitioning to the next generation of equipment.
