A snapshot of one of our cameras at a mining construction project in South America.
Last week one of our clients in South America wrote me an email. They wanted to let me know that they would be blasting dynamite in their mining construction site and were worried that our cameras and other equipment would be damaged. We had to quickly come up with a plan to protect our assets while at the same time minimizing costs and down time of our monitoring system.
Why I’m I telling you this?
Sometimes when we are approached for a proposal or quote for installing cameras on construction sites, or for providing time-lapse recording of construction activities, I’m asked for two prices. Prospective clients often ask for a price in which we would offer a turn-key system, and one for us to simply sell the equipment.
The idea is to help them decide whether it is worth to keep Remontech involved during the entire project or just at the beginning.
There is not one simple answer to this question. However, here are some things to consider.
Maintaining equipment on construction site takes work.
As I have mentioned before here on the blog, construction sites are volatile environments. Any equipment that you plan on keeping on site for a long time will require some planning and some oversight to make sure that it stays functional for the duration of the project.
I don’t even know how many times we were called to construction sites because the trailer on which we had our cameras mounted had to be moved, or because the pole to which our equipment was attached would have to be removed, or because the fence post where we had a camera mounted was going to be taken down. Other examples are the countless times when machinery had run over cabling or temporary power had to be disconnected.
Keeping equipment running on construction sites takes planning and ongoing care.
So the question is: do you have the personnel, expertise, and time to do it? If so, then yes, perhaps it may be worth it for you to purchase the monitoring equipment.
Now, as we have noticed in the past 10 years or so, many project teams have no time or human resources to maintain camera systems. That is why the vast majority of the cases, we provide a turn-key service for our clients.
In the turn-key system, you are purchasing the service of remote monitoring and time-lapse recording, not a camera.
In this case, all equipment and maintenance is responsibility of the vendor. In the case of Remontech, we can look at your project and advise, based on your site plans and gantt chart, where and when to install equipment. We can also design the best combination of lenses and cameras, as well as all the other necessary equipment to ensure that all activities of interest will be captured.
A turn-key system outsource the design, installation, and maintenance of construction camera systems and has a built-in mechanism to ensure that the system will be operational for as long as it needs to be and with as little interruptions as possible.
What are your thoughts? Send me a message by clicking here.
Have a great day!
Cesar Abeid, Project Manager, Remontech