High Security

High Security

With more than £1 million-worth of plant equipment being stolen every week, theft prevention measures are more important than ever. Colin Sowman, Editor of Plant Managers’ Journal, reports.

Plant is being stolen at the rate of over £1m per week. Why? Because the machines are expensive, there is a worldwide market and they have little or no protection. An array of security devices have deterred criminals from stealing cars while steeling plant is a low risk, high reward alternative.

Most items are taken from construction sites about which plant hirers have little or no say over security. Even if the stolen equipment is covered by the customer’s insurance, a study by Bridle Plant Brokers commissioned by Kosran found the uninsurable losses (time, lost hire and cross hire) amount to £4,000 per machine. According to The Equipment Register (TER), mini excavators are the most stolen item so the unrecoverable £4,000 is a substantial proportion of the machine cost.

So where do plant hirers wanting to reduce theft start? With your own depot says Brian Morris from Laing O’Rourke. He says a good perimeter security is essential and advises walking round the outside of the fence and thinking ‘if I were a thief, how could I get in?’ Street furniture or an adjacent low wall that could provide a useful leg-up and often gates have lift-off hinges. Detective Constable Craig Boswell from Merseyside Police told the Construction Industry Theft Solutions’ (CITS) forum that official statistics reveal that in 77% of plant theft cases there were no gates on the compound.

Thieves sometimes drive a truck into the yard, pick up an item of plant and disappearing again without being challenged or even noticed. One solution may be CCTV with the likes of Challenger Security Products introducing ever-more sophisticated cameras that include lighting control. Wireless CCTV equipment such as that offered by WCCTV and Tag Guard is easily set up and repositioned while Vision Technics’ system includes number plate recognition and can be linked to an automatic barrier system.

CCTV users and systems must comply with the Data Protection Act – BSI Business Information has recently published a code of practice (BS 7958:2005)

Plant is particularly vulnerable during handover at the start and end of the hire period and can be left unattended at the side a road or on a dismantled and deserted site. A little forward planning will ensure somebody is on-site to receive the machine and a couple of phone calls will give prior notice of when to collect the item before the site is deserted.

Security on the machine itself is more difficult but breaks down into devices that stop the machine being stolen and those to locate and identify it once it has been taken.

Vandal guards are a good first line of defence - it is obvious that they are fitted; they delay a thief getting into the cab and moving the vehicle; as well as preventing smashed screens.

Effective deterrents

Mechanical products such as those offered by Actiserve, Lincmaster and Meck Lock can provide a good deterrent by locking rams, track and stabilisers. Devices are also available to secure smaller plant items to the ground or a structure (to prevent craning onto a truck) while the Breaker Lok secures attachments to the carrier. GE Equipment is introducing its high-security container called PlantSecure in which all manner of plant and equipment can be stored.

The big drawback these devices is that it relies on the operator fitting (or parking in) them at the end of the day and that impossible to guarantee when renting out non-operated plant.

For this reason equipment requiring no operator input is desirable – and one of the simplest all is paint. Most plant hirers apply their own decals to a machine in the manufacturer’s standard colour. While this is quick and simple for the owner, it is just as easy for the thieves to take the logos off and apply the standard decals.

Mike Revell group plant and transport director for the Clancy Group and chairman of CITS says: “Painting machines in the owner’s livery is one of the simplest and most effective deterrents making its ownership instantly recognisable. A thief would have to completely respray one of our machines they before they could move it on – why bother when there are thousands of others out there in standard colours.” Most plant manufacturers offer the option to paint machines in customer’s colours for a small and negotiable premium.

Immobilisers are becoming more common and Kubota fits them as standard equipment on its mini excavator range - as does JCB on its 3CX Contractor backhoe loader. Others plant manufacturers offer immobilisers as option and there are aftermarket products offered by the likes of Meck Lock which is used to cut hydraulic circuits (for steering, boom or stabiliser activation). However, many systems depend on keys and keys can be lost or mislaid so an alternative that is gaining acceptance is the keypad.

The advantage of this approach is that if the regular operator is off sick then one phone call gets the replacement operator the code. The plant owner can re-set the code using a master-code and fitters can have a special code allowing them restricted use of the machine for maintenance purposes.

Kosran and MP Safety Systems use keypads to de-activate their immobiliser systems. Kosran’s system cuts the fuel system and locks the electrical and hydraulic circuits on a machine automatically 30 seconds after the engine is switched off. It says no machine fitted with its immobiliser has ever been stolen. MP Safety’s device automatically engage the immobiliser (including shutting the engine down) if the machine is left unattended for more that two minutes.

Tracking systems are gaining in popularity but are of little or no use until the plant has been stolen – and even then some providers may require a police crime reference number before the device can be activated. There are very many suppliers including Siemens VDO, Thales Telematics, the Toad Group, Purple Alert, Eye Wave and Police 5 – the list goes on. However, probably the best know name is Tracker which recovered £3.1m worth of plant in 2005 – and indeed the single most expensive item it recovered was an excavator.

Unfortunately there is one big drawback for tracking systems as far as plant hire companies are concerned - not knowing the exact moment a machine is stolen. It can often be a day or two before anybody on site reports that a hired piece of equipment is missing. At the CITS forum DC Boswell highlighted such delays as one reason why the recovery rate for stolen plant is only a fraction of that for motor vehicles.

Technology fix

There is potential technological fix offered by some systems in geo-fencing the machine. This sends a signal if a machine moves outside an allocated area - say a mile radius of a site. This is but one of the myriad of features available on location and tracking systems so check them all carefully to see which offers the most suitable solution for your needs.

Companies like Alpha Dot and Datadot spray thousands of coded micro dots onto the machine allowing them to identify recovered plant. The dots fluoresce under certain light conditions and only a complete respray would stand any chance of masking them. Systems like Selectamark and windscreen etching are more obvious to the thief to act as a deterrent.

CITS also recommends registering machines with a nationally-accessible database such as TER or the DVLA. Attaching the number plate to DVLA registered plant can allow the police track it using TV cameras on our trunk roads and also helps identify the rightful owner. Registering the serial numbers of equipment with TER can be useful to the police, auction houses and dealers needing to determine the correct owner.

All these things cost money however, if the bespoke paint, immobilisers and tracking system are fitted on-line the cost can be included in the purchase price making it part of the capital costs. This can them be written down against your tax bill as with rest of the machine.

On the positive side insurers are beginning to offer discounts to for plant hire companies taking anti-theft measures while those not taking such steps are increasingly being dropped off the preferred supplier list of some of the big contractors.

In time all machines will be fitted with additional security. But until then plant hire companies making such investments can and will benefit from their investment – even if that is only avoiding disputes with your customers over the residual value of a stolen machine.