The Geoforce Is With Them

What do you do when the technology that would make your life easier doesn’t exist yet?

In the case of Geoforce, you make it yourself.

It all began during a superstorm that threatened to destroy the world as we know it. It was a dark and stormy night…oh, hold up, my editor is telling me that’s the plot to GeoStorm, the 2017 movie starring Gerard Butler. We are, in fact, talking about Geoforce, a telematics company that provides asset tracking through devices and a global network. 

They also just integrated with Fullbay, so you know they’re cool.

We sat down with Geoforce Content Marketing Manager Alexis Torres to get the scoop on the company’s history and the integration itself.

THE GEOFORCE AWAKENS

Way, way back in the early 2000s, James Maclean III was working as a field engineer for Schlumberger (known now as SLB). That meant a lot of time spent on offshore rigs. It also meant a lot of project delays because equipment kept going missing.

We don’t mean thievery, by the way. It was more about just not knowing where that equipment had been shipped to or stored. “It was hundreds of thousands of dollars on the hour trying to get equipment flown [to] the site,” Alexis told us. “James … realized there was a better way to do this.”

James set out to create a cloud-based solution to “take the chaos out of field operations.” Knowing where units and assets were at all times would make projects go a lot smoother, save money, and just bring value to the field.

The Force was with him, literally; he started Geoforce in 2007, focusing intently on the oil and gas industry. 

A ROUGH INDUSTRY

We haven’t written a ton about oil and gas, but something you should know right off the bat is that it’s a rough field. The hardware gets banged around quite a lot; it has to deal with extremely high (and sometimes very low) temperatures. Vibration and shocks are commonplace. And if you’re at sea, you must face the dreaded salt water.

“Everything that technology is not designed for is being thrown in this specific environment,” Alexis said. 

Oh, yeah, and it’s also considered a highly explosive environment. 

That, Alexis told us, means “when you’re running technology on those sites, you can’t have anything that can even potentially produce a spark.” 

Understandably, there are a lot of requirements that oil and gas equipment has to meet.

James kept working at it. He put Geoforce’s burgeoning hardware through rigorous testing, and was able to get their devices certified to operate on the oil and gas sites. Holding these certifications means there isn’t a risk of explosions, sparks, or fire; it also suggests the casing will stand the test of time. 

Here’s another tidbit about the oil and gas industry: a lot of the sites are really, really remote. Like in the middle of an ocean or desert remote. Like you get flown in on a chopper remote. A rugged tracker is great, but eventually its battery is going to run out, and getting a field tech out to the boonies to replace dead trackers can be…well…an undertaking, both financially and in terms of human resources.

James was able to patent a longer battery life for Geoforce devices. “You install these trackers — weld them on in some cases — and walk away for seven to 10 years, and they’re gonna be just fine on their own,” Alexis said.

(Please hold while we look over our own electronic devices and wonder which of them could hold a charge for even half that time.) 

COMMUNICATION IS KEY

So you’re drilling for oil in the middle of the Permian Basin or Bakken shale. Odds are you don’t have access to cellular infrastructure (yes, there are some remote sites with magical cellular connections, but it’s still not regular). Fifteen or so years ago, there was even less of that infrastructure. 

Geoforce’s trackers pull GPS data from satellites, and then transmit that data via satellite. They aren’t reliant on local connectivity to hit remote spots and provide nearly global connection. 

Fast forward to today. Geoforce has grown. They’re tracking over 275,000 assets around the world. They’re not all dealing with oil and gas, either. “[It’s] not the only group that needed this kind of technology,” Alexis said. The company has expanded into construction, mining, and rail, among other fields. 

Geoforce is still developing some extremely cool stuff, including a solar integration on the hardware side and additional software capabilities like utilization analytics. “As our customer needs have evolved, we’ve been able to evolve with them,” Alexis said. 

Hmm, that sounds like another company we know…

GEOFORCE + FULLBAY

So, how did our slick shop management software end up integrating with a rugged tracker company? Well, we wandered into a seedy cantina in Mos Eisley…okay, no. Alas, it was less exciting than that; one of our customers said, “Hey, if you guys could work together that would be swell.”

We sat down and talked, and hey, it was actually a pretty good match.

Telematics are an increasingly important part of any maintenance operation. They let you stay up-to-date on the mileage and location of customer assets and your own service trucks; in the case of the former, mileage can and does inform preventive and predictive maintenance, and in the case of the latter, why not use telematics to better plan your routes?

FULLBAY AND TELEMATICS BRING YOUR SHOP TO THE NEXT LEVEL

Do you long to know where your customers’ trucks have been? And what mileage they carry without having to poke your head outside? Are you curious about what else telematics can offer your shop? Then we recommend checking out our telematics integrations, available through Fullbay Connect! 

Haven’t yet tried Fullbay but might be curious? We’ve got a free demo right over here. And of course, if you’re burning to learn more about Geoforce, visit their site! Tell ‘em Fullbay sent you.