The company received a report from specialist retail and forecourt construction contractors, Williams Southern, that a new hydraulic breaker had been stolen from its site in Southampton, southern England. It was part of a £1 million (€1. 4 million) range recently introduced by Hewden, which, in an industry first, came fitted with GPS trackers.
“As soon as we became aware of the breaker being stolen, we immediately contacted Hewden to advise. I was pleased to be informed that the breaker had a tracker fitted and that Hewden was confident of recovery,” says Matthew Easterbrook, senior buyer at Williams Southern.
The team at Hewden informed tracking company, Automatrics, and along with a local detection officer, the signal on the stolen attachment was traced to a nearby vehicle. Police were alerted and within six hours the breaker attachment was recovered.
“Without the tracking system fitted to this Hewden Breaker, we would have experienced a fair bit of disruption on site, in addition to the burden of insurance claims and unwanted charges. Instead, we were able to quickly get back to work and leave the rest to the police,” added Easterbrook.
Hewden estimates that reported attachment theft alone could be costing the industry more than £1 million/year, and is calling on the hire industry to follow suit and make trackers standard on all future attachment equipment.
