I’ve been providing hardware solutions to the geospatial industry for most of my career and there has been a consistent complaint from end users about unscheduled costs for the upkeep of instrumentation. It’s usually expressed in the high cost of replacements parts like batteries and cables, or sometimes the loss of income during a service or repair. The net cost of these ongoing expenses, plus the purchase price, amounts to the total cost of ownership.

Want to know how to fix the total cost of ownership for up to five years?

Like good car service agreements, some survey equipment suppliers include a certain amount of service costs in a maintenance package, although most fall short of offering a complete wear and tear solution.

The pressure and demands on a surveyor are ever increasing. You need to concentrate on your job and your surveying equipment needs to be like a ninja, silent, efficient and precise. Stay with me on this.

Cost of uptime

Even with good care things can just break or fault. Regardless of brand, batteries die, cables break, and electrical equipment can fault. Whereas a standard maintenance agreement would draw the line at the instrument itself, a comprehensive plan takes the unknown costs out of the equation and extends to everything in the box.

When you subscribe to one of our plans, If your battery goes flat, it gets replaced free of charge. If your UHF antenna is faulty, it too is fixed at no cost. If anything else faults from normal wear and tear, it’s covered.

Just as Kochie keeps reminding small businesses and families to demand more from the banks, surveyors should get better support from their suppliers, and thats exactly what we’ve done!

Imagine starting your new survey business and being able to lock in your costs for up to 5 years. You can finance the complete solution over a 5 year term and know exactly what your costs are to establish your competitive rates and keep your cash flowing to more important things……like a fishing boat!

Cost of downtime

Survey equipment is no different to people, sometimes they get sick. And just like being sick and out of the field, downtime on survey hardware will cost you money…..not anymore! When one ninja falls another takes its place, silent, precise efficient. Our maintenance plan includes no change loan equipment in the unlikely event of any hardware failure.

Getting your equipment serviced and calibrated every year is important to keep you as productive and your results as precise as possible. The service is of course included in a good maintenance contract and loan equipment is always provided for all scheduled services.

Our comprehensive maintenance agreements mean the hardware is completely covered. The only time you’ll need to put your hand in your pocket is if you leave it on the tray and drive off…..even then your insurance will step in.

The cost of this hassle-free, no surprises plan? A lot less than you would expect. Just as having your equipment running keeps you more productive, having the majority of customer equipment regularly serviced keeps our productivity up too. Planning for the unexpected means we are faster and more efficient at handling those instances, which keeps our costs down too.

Don’t accept those surprise costs as part and parcel of owning surveying gear.

Partner with us and you can and should get a better deal that wears the unexpected failures and keeps you out in the field doing what you do best, surveying.

Article by: Cameron Waters – National Product Manager – Geospatial