Plant Machinery Still Remains a Huge Attraction to Criminals
Although major advances have been made with regards to reducing the risk of plant theft, it still remains a huge problem and expense for plant operators.
It is not only the cost of the actual stolen plant that plant hirers or owners have to take into account, there is the inconvenience to consider, as well as additional costs including plant replacement and increased insurance premiums. Some small plant operators still self-insure and meet their own losses, and the theft of a machine worth tens of thousands of pounds can have a huge impact on their business.
Criminals are attracted to plant because it traditionally has very low recovery rates and they perceive it as a high profit, low risk activity. A decent piece of plant machinery can be worth four times that of a car or even more, and if it is left unattended by the roadside, it becomes a huge attraction for criminals looking for an asset to steal.
At AMI Group, we offer a range of cost-effective plant tracking devices which can assist the safe return of plant machinery in the unfortunate event of it being stolen. This small investment can pay dividends, as the money spent on increasing security measures can be quickly recovered through insurance discounts, reduced claims and less downtime.
Virtually on a daily basis we are helping AMI Group 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 (Global Positioning System), GSM (Global System for Mobile Communications) and RF (Radio Frequency) 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. Over £245 million worth of customer assets are now protected with AMI Group systems, including several of the UK’s national plant hirers and construction companies.