Lock it or Lose it

There has been a problem with plant theft over the past few years. In Britain the chances of heavy equipment being stolen have actually increased in recent years, despite vehicle crime in general coming down. It is also disheartening to realize that any heavy machine that does go missing has a less than five percent likelihood of ever coming back.

Things are pretty bad in Europe for anybody who has their plant nicked, as insurance companies invariably look for ways of getting out of paying a claim. However, it can be just as bad for consumers in the Middle East who buy second hand equipment, only to find out it is stolen property.

While equipment actually being stolen here in the GCC is much less of a problem, it does still happen, with some areas being far worse than others.

But why, in this day and age is it still [possible to walk off with a machine weighing twenty tonnes at all? Simply put, even quality, branded machines usually have no more security than a 1970s saloon car. Most equipment has a key operated switch and perhaps a button lock on the door, and nothing else.

CHANGES

Things are likely to change soon, as in the UK at least a body has been set up to resolve the problem. One solution is to put all items of plant and machinery, from a portable cement mixer to a batching plant on a register, which in the UK is known as the construction equipment security and registration, or CESAR scheme. In turn all items on the register will be fitted with small ‘active’ RFID chips hidden in the machine from a company called Datatag so that police can use scanners to identify the equipment.

The most recent manufacturer to add Datatag to all of its machines as standard was Bell. Commenting on the move Bell’s UK Sales Manager, Bob Aldridge, had this to say “We’ve been aware of the progress made by CESAR for some time and we’re also aware of the issue of plant theft that our customers face. Adopting CESAR from the turn of the year is a positive step for Bell Equipment to take and one that shows our customer orientation.”

Other manufacturers fit the CESAR system at no cost, including Doosan, JCB and Amman-Yanmar. Datatag say that there is a twenty percent discount on insurance premiums for machinery equipped with the system, while cases of recovered equipment that have been positively identified have always been returned to its rightful owner, or his insurance company.

However, the system only works if police with the right scanner and find some equipment that they deem to be suspicious. For the most part equipment seems to just disappear into thin air - how can this be prevented from happening?

As mentioned, the general level of standard security on even very expensive machines can be very low, but some companies are beginning to take the matter seriously. In many markets Komatsu excavators have sophisticated security systems, such as PIN number protection (there is a numerical pad and a start button where you might expect the key to be.) while Kubota machines use a key with a chip in it, making it very hard to start the machine without it.

There’s much more to be done though, as TER points out.

A cheap and simple way of stopping a thief driving off in your machine is to fit an immobiliser. Again, in the UK a body called Thatcham approves such devices for insurance companies, and one of the highest rated items comes from a manufacturer called Kosran. The immobiliser has something called an ‘Electronic coded valve’ and it works by shutting off the machine’s hydraulics as well as the fuel supply. There is no input need on behalf of the operator - the system is set whenever the machine is switched off.

There are other types of immobiliser of course, with the most simple tye being a switch that has a part removed when the machine is not in action, making it difficult to start. Some manufacturers include a mechanical system as standard or as an option on their machinery. The mechanical locking system is built into the ignition switch, which when switched disconnects all the main vehicle systems, making it very difficult to start without the key.

TRACKING

Of course, all this is rather academic. An immobiliser might stop bored kids from wrecking havoc on a bulldozer in a city centre, but who is realistically going to drive off in a twenty tonne tracked excavator? The thieves will of course trailer the machine away to their own den, where any immobiliser can be picked over at their leisure. Fitting a satellite tracking device can be a way of ensuring that the product can be tracked to distant shores. Unfortunately, recovery rates are not as good as they might be with such devices, as when the plant is put in a container, it usually loses ‘reach’ of the sky and stops sending a signal to base.

That isn’t to say that such devices never result in the return of equipment. Recently, one group of plant owners a celebrating following the successful retrieval in Sharjah of a JCB skid-steer loader stolen from the UK which had been fitted with a satellite tracking device.

After the alarm had been raised about the machine’s theft, by following the satellite reports from the tracking devices in the stolen skid-steer loader, it was found that the machine left the country from Southampton docks nine days after it was stolen. Enigma, who provide the tracking service, contacted Southampton docks to get the timetable and schedule of all the ships sailing out of Southampton on the same date the skid-steer departed from the UK and found the ship on which the machine was transported was the Socol 2 bound for Gibraltar. The machine was subsequently carried across the Mediterranean Sea and down the Suez Canal to Oman, where it was unloaded and moved along the coast.

Through further tracking, Enigma was able to pinpoint the new location of the machine in Sharjah, where it stopped moving a couple of days later.

Working alongside Enigma’s joint venture partner based in Dubai, they were able to arrange for an undercover representative to visit the location in Sharjah who found the machine and the people holding it.

To ensure the skid-steer loader was not sold on, the firm arranged for a deposit to be paid to hold the machine in place, while Interpol working between England and Sharjah completed the necessary paper work to recover the machine.

Three days later, the Sharjah police took two suspects into custody together with not only the skid-steer loader, but also a generator stolen from another plant hire company in the Manchester area.
Most people are not so lucky though, but fitting such devices makes the equipment much more of an insurable risk.

PHYSICAL LOCKS

There are a couple of other less glamorous, but effective ways of hanging onto your property. One of them is to physically secure the equipment with locks and chains. There are some firms that specialise in making locks just for construction vehicles. One UK-based company named TLD makes some special locks that immobilise the steering mechanisms on many tracked and wheeled construction equipment. The firm also makes trailer locks, which allow the hitches of several trailers to be clamped together.

There are a number of other chassis locks available, most of them developed by the touring caravan industry in Europe (these little aluminum boxes are inexplicably popular in Europe – so much so, they are continually being stolen.) Some of these fit over the coupling handles on trailers so that the brake can’t be taken off, or the hitch accessed.

However, there is one further way of ensuring your machines stay put in the yard. It isn’t perfect – far from it, but it is usually the best physical deterrent available. The method? Employ a security guard.