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EquipmentShare’s GearHub™ takes the concept of industrial vending machines and expands it to serve not just manufacturing facilities but also America’s largest construction sites. With GearHub, you can automate the distribution of tools, PPE and supplies so your teams can get the items they need quickly and get back to work.
If you need safety gloves, a drill or a grinding disc, you no longer need to search through stacks of boxes in a storeroom or drive to a tool trailer or to find what you need.
“The biggest return on investment for customers is you no longer need to make emergency purchases, you’re minimizing downtime and you’re eliminating redundant inventory,” said Jesse Mestas, a manager of EquipmentShare’s vending program. “It’s also giving the customer real-time visibility and removing bottlenecks, like requiring the super to be there to approve purchases. They’re able to see who’s taking which items on a weekly, daily and hourly basis and how much is being spent on that production line or jobsite.”
What are GearHubs?
GearHubs are customizable and secure vending machines that dispense supplies and tools. By scanning a badge or keying in a code, workers can get exactly what they need, whether it’s a pair of safety glasses they’ll keep or a power tool they’ll return to the GearHub.
“The beauty of the machine lies in its versatility and ability to vend a wide range of solutions,” said Matt Dunn, of EquipmentShare’s Site Solutions team. “We’ve vended a 15-pound sledgehammer from the machine, so it’s not limited to small items. It is capable of handling virtually anything a fabrication shop or construction site customer may need.”
Depending on your needs, you can supplement the main GearHub carousel vending machines with locker units that have customizable compartments to house even larger items.
Best of all, EquipmentShare delivers and stocks your GearHub at no cost. You are only billed for the items your workers select for purchase or rent. EquipmentShare monitors the minimum/maximum inventory levels and restocks the GearHub at the right time to avoid work disruptions.
GearHub advantages
Maximize uptime: Every time a worker goes in search of a grinding disc or a pair of gloves, it’s a progress stopper. A $5 item can cost you much more than that in lost productivity.
GearHub solves the problem.
“If we’re talking about a big jobsite or a refinery — these are huge places,” said Nick Deuel, a manager of EquipmentShare’s vending program. “You have to get on a buggy, go to the warehouse or storeroom and go back, and it’s 15 or 20 minutes. If the attendant isn’t there overnight, you might have to go to another warehouse that’s farther away and it’s even longer. Having a machine in your work area saves all of that. And you don’t need an attendant. It’s always available, 24/7.”
Bill and budget correctly: Because workers badge in or enter a code to use GearHub, the cost of their purchase is assigned to their job.
“It comes down to understanding your true craft cost,” Dunn said. “In a manufacturing environment or complex construction site, multiple jobs may be running simultaneously and employees could have unrestricted access to tools and consumables. With GearHub, users can be asked to input a job number at the point an item is vended, ensuring those costs are accurately captured and can be applied to a specific BOM. That level of transparency and visibility can directly improve not only our clients’ visibility into spend patterns, but also may improve their margins by highlighting exactly what it takes to produce each job.”
Minimize tool loss: Disappearing tools are often considered the cost of doing business, but they don’t have to be. GearHub documents who rents tools (think small hand drills), and EquipmentShare’s tools are outfitted with Bluetooth tags that allow them to be tracked on the T3® platform.
“Customers know they’re losing tools, but they can’t pinpoint where or why,” Mestas said. “GearHub can find the handoff gaps and accountability issues. You can see it in real time without having to do manual audits. Another issue is hoarding tools. Someone on a production line might have a box of tools and they’re not using them but they want them handy if they do need them. So you can make those audits on a daily basis instead of all the sudden your production line is down or construction is down while you try to find a tool.”
Reduce unnecessary inventory: Instead of paying up-front for a room full of tools and consumables, including some your employees might not need, you can let EquipmentShare stock the right tools at the right time based on data generated by GearHub.
“It’s eliminating the need for someone to worry about the inventory and making sure they have enough on-site,” Deuel said. “It’s our job to make sure it’s stocked in the right quantities. Not having to dedicate someone to that frees up their time for something else.”
Is GearHub right for you?
Vending machines have usually been used in industrial facilities, such as automotive plants, machine shops and steel mills. But they also make sense for refineries or large construction sites — any business or project that typically spends $15,000 or more per month on tools and consumables.
EquipmentShare can package its GearHubs in storage containers so they’re protected from the elements and can be strategically located wherever they’re needed as jobs progress, as long as there is access to a power source. They can be filled with whichever items are needed at that part of the jobsite at that stage of construction. And EquipmentShare’s massive trove of historical data gathered by T3 can help customers find the right mix of tools and consumables for their GearHubs based on similar projects.
“If you think about the construction of a data center, you have a tool trailer, but that tool trailer might be parked a half-mile from the jobsite,” said Grant Reviere, EquipmentShare’s vice president of Site Solutions. “So we can support it by having GearHubs on-site so employees don't have to walk a half-mile or get on a UTV to get the most commonly used items.”
A member of EquipmentShare’s vending team can meet with you to discuss your needs and conduct a site survey to see if a GearHub system is right for you.
Email vending@equipmentshare.com to start the discussion.
