Tag Archives: heavy equipment

Sell your heavy equipment on internet

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Internet has given us all a new way of conducting business. There are millions of people who do not go out of their homes to work. All they do is turn on their computer and have their internet connection on. They do their business from that small equipment and make good profits. We can make use of the same technology to sell heavy equipment and still expect good profits. One may be forced to ponder that how somebody can buy construction machines by not even seeing it in person. Well, they can at least select the product online and then they can personally come down to check the stuff. This idea of selling heavy equipment online has been a big success throughout the globe. Be it developed economies or developing economies, all are making ample use of this technology to make their business successful.

We will be talking a bit in detail on how one can conduct this business without even stepping out from their home.

Become member of an online portal:-

There are number of online portals available that are into selling heavy equipment. Not just heavy equipment, they also sell heavy equipment accessories. An online portal is nothing but just a platform provided to both buyers and sellers to come to a common ground and do business there. So the seller simply lists the items that he wishes to sell with the price that he expect to get and if any buyer who is looking for similar stuff likes the item, he can buy it online and pay for the stuff using his credit card or through internet banking. All they have to do is become a member of the online portal to begin business on the website.

List items giving detailed description:-

When you are listing your product on the online portal, you should be aware that people are not able to personally see the machine though they can see the picture of the product but not the product itself. Therefore, you should give a detailed description of the product on the portal so that the readers get a fair idea as to what they will be dealing with. Mention every intricacy, sophistication of the heavy equipment on the listing. Viewers will want to know more about the product if you mention the intricacies. They might get attracted towards the product and might contact you so that the process can be initiated further.

Accept the payment via the portal only:-

Once you finalize the deal, please ask the buyer to pay for the equipment via the portal. It gives both the parties the required security that they are looking for in the transaction. It protects the interests of both the buyer as well as the seller. You may have to pay some amount to the online portal for listing the item and some fees if the item is sold successfully but it is really worth the security that you get from them after the deal is done.

Sharing ideas on heavy equipment on blogs have proved to be helpful

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When you are dealing with a new thing in life you obviously need someone to guide you. A move in the right direction is all that you need to get going. However, you may not be able to find the person who can help you with the right sort of advice that you need. Moreover, it is difficult to identify such person who has expert knowledge on the subject that you are looking for an advice. Other than that, you do not know if the person will be ready to help you as no one likes to give helpful advices for free. Therefore, the most viable option you have is to follow a blog of a person who consistently writes on it and then probably ask questions on the blog. You might find some real good answers. Not only from the guy who owns the blog but also from other people who have interest in the same subject and are also following the blog like you do. They might also give you a couple of advices that might work wonders for you.

Heavy equipment is considered to be a complex subject and people often need expert advice on it. Be it the kind of machine they need to complete a particular type of work or if the machine is not functioning for some reason and have tried all that they can, one can expect some brilliant answers on the blog. People there come out with different kinds of options which you must have never heard about or have even thought about in the wildest of your dream. It is a place where people attached to the same line of business come together and tries to upgrade their knowledge by reading to what others have to say on a particular issue posed by a random member.

It has been seen that someone who has some issue with his heavy equipment just throws a question to check the kind of reply he can get from there and how useful it would be for him to get the machine fixed. Once the issue is posted, he gets multiple replies from people who are a constant follower of the blog. At times the administrator of the blog also gives his view point on the topic. This suggests that you need not have to be the administrator of a blog to pose a question. A person who is frequent to the blog can also put his question and wait for the reply.

People have managed their construction business well by asking for tips on the blogs. They were initially not doing well and a couple of advices from some expert have changed their fortune. There is multiple such success stories that one can find that are related to sharing ideas on the blog. A word of caution will be to not take everybody’s advice at face value. You got to learn to judge people’s advices out there. It must have worked for them but not necessarily will work for you.

Regular washing of heavy equipment lengthens its life span

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Heavy equipment catch a lot of dirt after going through arduous activities on a jobsite. It also becomes the reason of its early wear and tear. Normally, heavy equipment are meant for rough use but need also should be taken to clean it up after use so that it evades any early wear and tear. Most contractors have to do away with their machines as they were not able to maintain it well. They however felt that they were not given top notch machines which led the machine to become a scrap before time. But the fact is somewhat different. It has been witnessed that contractors let their heavy equipment to others who use it as per their own whims and fancies and never ever bother about servicing it, washing the machine is a farfetched idea. Faulty machines have hardly been the cause of its early wear and tear.

Wash your machine after every 15 days:-

Washing heavy equipment depends completely on the way it has been used. If the machine is used on marshy lands, then it should be washed almost every day or else there are high chances that the machine will not last for long. However, if it is used in a normal construction jobsite where it does not attract lot of dirt at a single point in time, then giving it to wash every fortnight will be a good idea. People ideally wash their equipment at the time of servicing it which is not at all an ideal thing to do. Servicing the equipment is different from washing it regularly. Servicing the machine includes washing, oiling, changing the engine oil and stuff. You conduct this activity once in a month or may be once in two months. But if the washing part is ignored, then the quality of the machine will take a backseat.

It saves money on replacing faulty parts:-

Washing the heavy equipment regularly cleans the dirt it has gathered for the last many days. If the dirt remains accumulated for weeks, it causes direct impact to the vital parts of the machine and eventually making that particular part obsolete. Any vital part of heavy equipment is highly expensive and if you have to replace it, you are taking out money from your business to fund the replacement. This would have been absolutely unnecessary had things been taken into control at the right time. Regular washing will clean off the dirt and will keep the vital parts of the machine in good order. This will eventually save money which otherwise would be spent on buying replacements.

Will not break down in middle of a project:-

Breaking down of heavy equipment in the middle of a project is nothing less than a nightmare from contractors. This is perhaps the last thing they would ever want to happen with them. Regular washing of machine lengthens the life span and thus one can be assured that this machine will not stop working as he always ensures that it is in good condition.

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Learning the technicalities of heavy equipment is not a tough business

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It is human tendency to feel a bit excited or apprehensive to learn something new or do something that they have never done before. It is perhaps we get so accustomed to our comfort zone that we prefer to stay there. It is however important to get over your comfort zone and take some new learning in life. The same approach is also applicable in the heavy equipment and construction business. A construction worker if given the chance to learn a bit about heavy equipment, he/she should grab that opportunity with both hands and try to learn it till its core. There is nothing to be afraid about the subject. People usually have the apprehension that heavy equipment is a complex subject and it will take a lot of time to know the ins and outs of it. Well, it is no matter little complex as compared to what he has been doing but as is gets going with that form of work, he will start finding it comfortable and will no longer find it a difficult thing to chew.

Practice will make you an expert:-

An expert in a subject does not become an expert without constantly working on it. In order to learn things and master it he has to devote his time and energy, be focused on what he is doing and slowly and steadily he inches towards becoming an expert. It is no way an overnight activity and certainly can’t be achieved without being attentive to your work. In order to learn and master the intricacies of heavy equipment you need to incorporate all the attributes that is required to become an expert. You got to practice what you have been doing and ask questions to your mentor when you get stuck. After having worked for a month or so you will realize that you have started knowing much of it than you have ever imagined.

Believing that you can do it:-

Self-belief is very important when you start doing something new in life. Learning the technicalities of heavy equipment can be a little difficult but you should have the belief that you can do it. That is the confidence that every person who is interested to do something in life should have. When you believe in yourself you can get rid of the most complex situation in life and this is what you need to have during your On Job Training. Not just when you are learning heavy equipment but during every challenge that you encounter in your life that you need to sustain this self-belief.

Get a good mentor:_

You need a good mentor who can guide and help you learn the difficult part of the business. Learning the technicalities can only become difficult if you fail to ask the right question to your mentor. While you are working and are stuck at something, walk up to him and throw your question. He will help you come to a solution. This is one of the best ways to learn things quickly. The moment you come across an issue, put it in front of the mentor and learn the workaround.

What are different hybrid heavy construction equipment?

When we adopt different technologies to make a single product that has added features in it, we can call it a hybrid product. We have so many hybrid products around us. It is just that we do not call it by that name. When we add new features, we in one way or the other add new technologies so that it can support those features. In a nutshell, it is the culmination or absorption of more than technology into making of a product. In the construction business, we have a mixture of hybrid heavy construction equipments as well as the conventional ones. It is evident that the hybrid heavy construction equipment are slightly on the expensive side and therefore not many can afford to buy them. However, it has been observed that construction companies are slowly and steadily adopting hybrid heavy equipment into their arsenal and it will not take long for them to completely replace the conventional machines with the hybrid ones.

Heavy equipment that are a combination of new features is the blue-eyed candy of every construction company. Construction companies in today’s time want machines that not only deliver the work in time but also conserve energy. This means that by using hybrid machines, the construction companies will be saving a ton through means of less energy consumption with optimal productivity. Therefore hybrid construction equipment are also defined as machines that have the capacity to collect, store and release energy during times of production. The look of the machine also changes and they do not look like the conventional ones. They are been designed with a whole new approach and that what makes them distinctive from the rest. Right from excavator to a graders and backhoe loaders, you can get a whole range of heavy equipment in the hybrid form.

Komatsu HB215LC-1 hydraulic excavator:-

This particular machine employs regenerative braking to store the energy of a decelerating upper structure. It uses an electric swing motor which when is put out of power it works as a generator and helps the upper structure to stop. The conventional ones uses hydraulic swing and do not have electric motor swing. The Komatsu hybrid excavator is regenerative heavy equipment. The electricity produced is forwarded to a capacitor. The power is stored in the capacitor which can be later used to power the swing of the machine or can drive the machine’s generator.

CAT Hybrid heavy equipment:-

This piece of machine uses the regenerative braking to preserve energy hydraulically. Therefore, when the machine uses the hydraulic swing motor and when the swing lever is released, the machine begins to slow down the upper structure and the swing motor is ceased to be driven by the pump. In this case, the motor is driven by the machine’s swing inertia making it act as a pump.

Hybrid machines not only save energy but also reduces carbon footprint. This indeed helps the ecosystem from getting more polluted. Construction sector is known to be a major contributor in polluting our environment and with the inception of hybrid machines this problem can be definitely tackled.

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Contingency fund to be maintained to tackle poor market conditions

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Things are not always rosy for any industry and they all have to go through some rough patches at different phases. You try to pull out the details of an industry for the last two decades and which is doing phenomenally well now. You will be astonished to see that it has gone through several bad phases in those 2 decades and this reveals many things. First is not every industry generates profits at all times and when it experiences the bad phase, it has the potential to wipe off many companies that are associated with it. The second is the most important point and it talks about how to overcome the bad phase systematically. Now focusing on the construction segment, it is also considered to be an industry that has generated profits in huge figures and the profit numbers have been drawing more people linking up with this industry.

As we say people come and go but the one who manage to stay can become a successful business owner. As a matter of fact, staying in this industry is a bit difficult as people have mended their ways after making some money and mostly losing everything they had. So what ideally important is to stay afloat during turbulent times and you can do that only if you have managed to set up contingency fund for your business.

Normally, we set up such contingency fund to take care of any emergency in our personal lives. Knowing that the future is unknown, these funds are said to be maintained at all times irrespective how eager you are to buy a luxury for yourself. Contingency funds are never meant to fulfill your luxurious needs and people need to understand this before it gets too late for them. In the same context, contingency funds are quite important when it comes to tackling an emergency.

Keep increasing your contingency fund:-

At the beginning of the construction business, you must have allocated a certain amount towards the contingency fund. But as you move ahead in life and simultaneously in your business you need to ensure that you keep increasing the amount and save more in your kitty. While you grow your business, the risk factor also increases manifolds and therefore it becomes a must to keep increasing the money in your emergency kitty.

Do not use contingency fund to meet business requirements:-

Contingency funds are not meant to meet your business requirements like buying heavy equipment or paying wages to your employees. It is there to take care of difficult times only. You have to make sure that you avail sufficient amount to meet other expenses. However, when the business is not doing well and you are cash crunched and need to pay the bank loan perhaps that is the moment when you should take out money from the kitty. You can consider the situation where you do not have work in hand and you got to pay your dues to different institutions as an emergency one and can make use of your kitty to meet those needs.

Small construction companies dependability of the mighty ones

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It has been usually seen in many industries that the big fish eat away the businesses of small fishes that try to enlarge their business. As far as the mighty companies are comfortable with the existence of the small companies around them, they will not hurt them but the moment they see the smaller companies trying to take some giant steps, this is when they get into action and try every possible thing to ruin their future prospects. Well, this is definitely not ethical but the irony is that it happens in every possible industry.

However, the big companies should remember that if they try to hurt the prospects of the smaller companies in an unethical manner, this can have repercussion on their business as well. The construction industry saw a lot of such happenings a couple of decades ago. However, it seems that now things are pretty stable when it comes to snatching away businesses of others. The small companies do not try to get in the way of the mighty ones and the big companies also seek the co-operation of the smaller guys in a big construction project.

The big companies have by now understood that it is not monetarily feasible for them to acquire heavy equipment as per the requirement of the project. Every other project may require a different kind of heavy equipment. This means that they can’t go on a shopping spree whenever they get a big project to work on. What they do is they include the co-operation of small companies who with the help of their limited arsenal of heavy equipment get into the work and as the project advances and it requires machines that are not usually possessed by small companies, the big companies then take the charge.

It is then that the big companies who have taken the project steps in towards the completion of work. This in many ways has been observed as a very healthy practice by many industry experts who believe that inclusion of small players not only gives the exposure in how to manage big projects but also prepares them to take bigger challenges in life.

This has led to many small construction companies to take up individual projects and also assist the big companies in completing theirs. A price of the work is quoted in the beginning and then other companies place their bids. The most affordable bid is taken into consideration for picking the most deserving company. Here the big companies should make sure that they pay the contractors for their services in full or else the contractors have complete authority to place lien on the project. This means that the construction company that has taken the work will no longer be able to deliver the work lien free and the end user will not be able to buy them keeping it as a mortgage.

The construction company will not want to get into such legal tussles and should settle any monetary issue calmly.

 

Check the UCC of heavy equipment before you buy one

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We all buy properties and while we search for a property, we want to ensure one thing and that is if there is any existing lien on the property. If the owner of the property is paying installments to the lender then you will find the lender holding the first lien or else the title will be in the name of the owner of the house. However, if you see any more lien on the same property then you should get cautious and inquire about the other lien holder. You just can’t put your hands in a property that has multiple liens. The title of the house should be in the name of its owner and in your case the seller. Similarly when it comes to buying heavy equipment you got to maintain the same level of caution. You have to check the UCC on the heavy equipment and only if you see all is clear that you should go ahead with the deal.

Ask the seller to show you the papers:-

Once you have decided to buy a construction machine from a dealer or a contractor or an individual, you should ask if the machine solely belongs to him and once you get the answer in positive you should then ask for the papers. Go through the document and try to understand everything that is in there. Ideally the title papers of heavy equipment are not so lengthy and complex that a layman will have problem to figure out what is written in it. However, if you find something fishy in it that raises doubt you can ask him to give the photocopy of the document so that you can get it checked with an attorney or someone who has the ability to comprehend a legal document. It is only after you are completely convinced with the authenticity of the document that you should proceed.

Ample of problems with heavy equipment with more than one lien:-

If you intend to buy construction equipment that has more than one lien, you are seriously inviting for trouble. Any real property which also includes construction machineries and has more than one lien becomes difficult to identify the real owner of the property. On the contrary, every person who has a lien is the rightful owner of the property. This means if you buy the heavy equipment and pays the amount to the seller you still can’t claim to be its sole holder. People who have their liens on the machine will bug you for no fault of yours. It can even lead to legal proceedings which will further hamper your business.

Search the serial number on UCC “Uniform Commercial Code”:-

It is quite simple to identify the name of the UCC holder if you know how to browse internet. All you got to do is go to google and key in “Uniform Commercial Code”. There you will get to know if the machine has any liens on it. Other than that a bill of sale can also act as an evidence.

Use of internet to solve heavy equipment problems

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We often depend on technology to fix problems that has been created on a technological produce. We are now at a stage where we can’t take a step forward without the involvement of technology and that actually should be the case. The more you use technology the better it will make your life. It is just that you do not become completely dependent on it or else you will find it difficult to live without it. Too much of dependency on anything can be fatal and one must realize this before it gets completely out of hand. However, when it comes to taking help of technology to fix problems that has been the product of technology one should not refrain from doing so. In the construction business which involves small contactors who can’t afford to hire mechanics to fix small issues often do things on their own. They just can’t afford to pay the fees that a mechanic charges to fix a machine and therefore they believe in doing things themselves.

Blog can be helpful:-

If you encounter a specific problem with the heavy equipment and you do not know what should be done to get rid of it, try to log in to net and check if someone has created a blog pertaining to the issue. If there is a blog addressing the problem you can expect to find some help there? Just read through the blog, the questions posed by people and the resolutions that some has left. It may leave you awestruck upon reading suggestions that are extremely out of the world. They will speak about workarounds that are hard to believe but if you apply them practically it may get rid of the problem once and for all. Blogs have been extremely helpful to many amateurs who have just started their journey in the construction world and does not know much about heavy equipment.

Articles can at times do the trick:-

Articles on heavy equipment can at times be really beneficial to solve a particular problem. If the writer has stressed on one particular issue and has written in length about the possible workarounds it can prove to be really helpful for the read to get rid of the issue. Articles are lengthy and therefore one can expect a lot of workarounds for a single issue.

Hire mechanics online:-

We can even hire a mechanic online. Mechanics often post their work on internet and also allows others to hire them to fix problems. Their charges may differ and that can be negotiated over the phone or when once you meet them. Nevertheless, internet has provided them with an option to post their services online and since most of the things today happen online they can even sell their services on that platform.

Make use of training videos:-

Guys who do not want to involve a mechanic to fix heavy equipment problems can make use of online videos that teaches people to fix heavy equipment. They may use a bit of technical jargons. Hence the person who is following the video should be acquainted with the terms.

Set up cameras to prevent theft of heavy equipment

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If you are operating a business, it becomes your responsibility to ensure that all your business equipment are safe and you prevent them from any risk of theft. Your equipment may have a value in the market but for you it is invaluable and you can’t afford to lose your priceless stuff just because you could not guard it against theft. This also indicates that you are not a good businessman. A person who stands in poor light when it comes to safeguarding his office equipment can never give a good picture of his business skills and therefore it is immensely important that you gear up against the miscreants and ensure that there will be no theft at your place. In the construction business where people deal with expensive machines the chances of it getting robbed is higher. This is why extra steps needs to be taken to make sure that you have the heavy equipment in a safe place that is constantly guarded and no one can get to it.

Install cameras at various points:-

The idea to install cameras at various points can certainly deter wrongdoers to a larger extent. It is evident that these guys are smart and we have to accept that. As long as we do not accept the fact that these troublemakers are smart we will not be able to tackle the problem effectively. Installing cameras can certainly outplay them and they will be apprehended to take a call if they should be going for you or not. Frankly no one wants to get caught and hence they might think of someone else’s construction site rather than yours. They just do not want to come under the lens as that will reveal their identity. You need to set up the cameras at all the important entry and exit points. Also set up a room for the security where he will keep a check on all the points with the help of the visuals. Thus you deploy fewer men to guard the machines and depend more on technology.

Buy cameras with good resolution:-

Since you are setting up cameras to protect heavy equipment from theft you make sure that you buy cameras with good resolution so that it can capture things with clarity. It makes no point in buying cameras that does not have high resolution as you will not be able to identify the face of the person who has committed the crime. It will also become difficult to trace the person if he finds success in stealing the machine. High resolution cameras are however expensive but certainly within the reach of a person who indeed wants his machine to be safe.

Buy branded cameras from designated stores:-

It is advisable that you buy cameras from designated stores and they should be of good brand. You may end up paying more for it but it will be really worth your money. Not all store will keep high end cameras and therefore check the ones that keep such cameras.

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