What “Moneyball” and telematics have in common: they both turn information into success

Updated Aug 27, 2014
Brad Pitt, as A’s general manager Billy Beane, and Jonah Hill as assistant GM Peter Brand, discuss expected wins and losses based on rosters in the 2011 film “Moneyball.”Brad Pitt, as A’s general manager Billy Beane, and Jonah Hill as assistant GM Peter Brand, discuss expected wins and losses based on rosters in the 2011 film “Moneyball.”

If you’ve seen the movie “Moneyball”, you understand how information can become a game-changer.  And if you have any smarts at all you’ll find that what worked in Moneyball can also work in any business—especially construction when you learn to use telematics.

The movie and the book by the same name, chart how Oakland Athletics general manager Billy Beane used computer-based research to prove  that he could win more games with lower-cost talent if he chose players using a metric everybody else ignored. Instead of paying big bucks for the heavy hitters, Beane found that teams with guys who consistently got on base won more games than teams with superstar homerun hitters.

Beane and his data model took a dead-last team to the playoffs in 2003 and 2005 with a player salary budget of just $41 million. But more importantly, he won against teams like the Yankees with their salary budget of $125 million.

In the world of construction fleet management, telematics plays the same role as Billy Beane’s statistical analysis. Telematics can show you where your fleet is efficient and where you’re wasting money. It can help you cut fuel costs and increase productivity and uptime. It’s information that’s available on almost every new model machine and often for free, or available through aftermarket vendors.

In short, telematics enables you to do more work with the same amount of equipment or the same amount of work with lower equipment costs. Billy Beane figured out how to give the big guys a run for their money without spending a lot of money. You can do the same if you learn to master telematics.

The Association of Equipment Management Professionals will dedicate the conference education portion of it’s fall Asset Management Program to telematics. The seminars will kick off Tuesday, November 4, with a session entitled Using Telematics Data to Achieve Competitive Advantage.

Additional telematics sessions include:

  • Where Are You In the Integration Process
  • AEM/AEMP Telematics Standard: What it Means for Your Business
  • Taking the No out of Technology: the Promise, the Power and the Problems of Telematics
  • Building a Case for Telematics

The speakers are predominantly  construction equipment fleet managers, but also include  tech industry professionals, dealers and OEMs.

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For registration and more information go to aemp.org.