The following blog is from SmartEquip, a gold sponsor of Point of Rental’s 2022 International Conference. Learn more about them at their website or by attending this year’s conference.
Today’s business world thrives on collaboration and working with trusted partners to build efficiencies and advantages. That is the core mission of the SmartEquip Network, which solves for three main business efficiencies: parts, service, and the back office. For more than 20 years, we’ve been building a global network of suppliers to support our equipment owner customer network.
Why do Point of Rental customers join? There are typically one of two primary reasons any fleet joins the SmartEquip Network — and it might surprise you that some who care immensely about one reason aren’t as concerned about the other. Here are our top five reasons:
1. Reduced Ordering and Administrative Costs
Time is money and the time it takes to order the right part can be costly. Before the proliferation of e-Commerce and other online resources, parts information was shared through manuals, whiteboards, DVDs and other hard-copy materials. There was no way to get correct information on parts across multiple locations for multiple brands of equipment.
With SmartEquip Procurement, technicians and fleet managers can identify and order the right part without flipping through multiple manuals, as well as update work and purchase orders directly on their Point of Rental instance. The turnkey connection of purchase order, invoice and payment reduces paperwork troubleshooting, simplifies recordkeeping and saves time.
And when on the Network, you may be able to identify that one rare part for sale sitting on a parts shelf at another one of your locations five states away.
2. Your Brands – Your Terms
If you’re a construction rental fleet with multiple locations, there’s a chance that not every employee may know about specific supplier pricing or parts agreements. They’ll either go down to a local parts supplier searching for a part and pay double the price instead of checking with other locations or otherwise.
SmartEquip Procurement centralizes all of that, so no matter from which business location or shop, your team members are ordering approved parts – and at pricing levels that are part of any supplier agreement you may have. With greater compliance having current pricing embedded in the system you’ll maintain your existing business relationships with your suppliers, as well as make parts sourcing easier for your staff.
3. Uptime
For most, the name of the game is uptime. Identifying that right part faster allows you to order it and get it installed faster, which gets you and your equipment up and running faster. Greater uptime is achieved through faster identification and sourcing of the part. Over $1 billion in parts are ordered over the Network every year.
4. Protection from Parts Supersession
Parts numbers change over the years, even if the base machine model/naming doesn’t. That can lead to headaches. We protect you against that by keeping our supplier support and product information up-to-date.
5. Access to Over 650 Brands
Our technology was built with the knowledge that most rental fleets are not made up of a single manufacturer. With our extensive global reach of existing equipment owners on the Network (a 52% increase in the last three years), comes a rapidly growing supplier network. In the past three years, the SmartEquip Manufacturer and Supplier Network has grown by 65%.
SmartEquip puts all those manufacturers and parts locations in one customized and centralized location to order for the brands in your fleet. Where else can you order parts from five different manufacturers on a single online interface? Nowhere.
And the industry has taken notice: SmartEquip now supports the five largest construction equipment rental companies in the world, including United Rentals, Sunbelt Rentals, Aktio, and Herc, alongside approximately 100 rental fleets across North America, Europe, and Japan.
Take the next step and learn how Point of Rental integrates into the industry’s only single-login parts procurement platform at the International Conference – October 23-26, 2022 or schedule a Demo today!