Tool tracking for construction sites
On site, tools do not get stolen so much as they get absorbed. A grinder goes into a van for one job, the van goes to another site, and three weeks later nobody can say whether it was lost, borrowed or written off — so it gets bought again.
No card, no sales call. Set up as construction and the whole system uses these words — materials, tools, job number.
Why site tools disappear
The container is unlocked all day because it has to be. Twenty people take things out of it, most of them subcontractors, and the record — if there is one — is a book on a nail with a pen on a string.
Replacement is quiet money. A £400 SDS drill bought three times in a year does not appear on anyone's report as a problem; it appears as three ordinary purchases. The loss only becomes visible when somebody totals it up, and by then it is a year old.
Handover between sites makes it worse. Kit moves with the job, the person who knew what came from where has moved on, and each new site starts its own informal record from scratch.
What Nilstock does in a construction container
Book tools out to an operative
Scan a badge, scan the tool, done. The tool is now against a named person with a return date. When somebody asks where the laser level is, the answer takes one screen rather than three phone calls.
Against a job number
Every movement can carry a job or cost code, so consumables and kit can be attributed to the job that used them rather than to the site in general.
Materials and consumables counted
Fixings, PPE, blades and sealant are counted rather than tracked to a person, with minimum levels so the container does not run dry mid-pour.
Overdue chases itself
Anything past its return date generates an email to whoever holds it, grouped so one person with six tools gets one message. Most kit comes back because somebody was reminded, not because somebody was chased.
Moving kit between sites
Check a tool back in at the site it arrives at and it relocates with a ledger entry saying so. The history follows the tool, not the site it started at.
All of it is the same engine everyone else gets — see the full feature list.
Questions people in this sector ask
- Will it work in a container with no wifi?
- It needs a connection. A phone hotspot or a 4G tablet is enough — the terminal is a web page, not a heavy app. If your container genuinely has no signal, this is not the right tool yet, and we would rather say so.
- Do subcontractors need accounts?
- No. Anyone who takes kit is a person on the system with a badge or a number, not a user with a password. You can add a subcontractor in about fifteen seconds.
- What hardware do we need?
- A tablet or spare PC in the container, and optionally a barcode reader from around £30. Any reader that types like a keyboard works — no drivers, no integration. People can type their number instead of scanning.
- Can we label tools we already own?
- Yes. Nilstock prints Code 128 barcode labels for assets you have already entered, so existing kit gets a tag without buying a labelling system.
- Does it do plant hire and thefts off site?
- It records who holds what and when it was due back, which is the evidence an insurer or a hire company asks for. It does not do GPS tracking, and we would not pretend a barcode is a tracker.
Guides worth reading first
Equipment
How to stop losing tools on site without treating people like suspects
Most tools are not stolen — they are in a van or a toolbox and nobody wrote it down. What works for tool accountability, and what makes it worse.
Hardware
Choosing a barcode scanner for a store room: what actually matters
Keyboard-wedge versus everything else, 1D versus 2D, corded versus Bluetooth, and why the £30 reader is usually the right answer. A practical buying guide.
Stock control
When a stores spreadsheet stops working (and why it is not the spreadsheet)
Most stores spreadsheets stop being accurate within months, and the cause is not Excel. Four signs you have crossed the line, and what actually fixes it.
Same engine, other sectors
Stop guessing what is in the container
Fourteen days free. Import your list, pair a tablet, and find out where things actually go. It takes about half an hour to reach a real movement.
Materials counted, tools tracked to a operative, every movement logged.