A Machine's Full Fault History, Back in Seconds
No more ringing the workshop to ask if anyone remembers this machine. No more opening job after job to piece together what happened last time. Text the serial number, get the history back.
Who it's for
Plant and equipment hire, industrial and catering equipment maintenance, and anyone repairing kit that comes back more than once.
What it saves you
The same fault diagnosed from scratch twice, and repair decisions made without the history.
Set up time
Most businesses are live within a week.
How do you check a machine's history?
Someone texts the serial number and asks. Build Concierge finds every previous attendance against that asset and replies with the history:
- the date
- the job reference
- who attended
- the fault reported
- the repair carried out.
That is the whole interaction.
- No login
- no searching
- no ringing round
The question can arrive by text, WhatsApp or email, and the answer comes back on the same channel within seconds.
Why is the history hard to find?
Because it exists, but only as a scatter of separate job records that nobody has ever pulled together.
The information is all there. Every attendance was logged, every fault was written up, every repair was recorded. But it sits across a dozen individual jobs, and getting the picture means opening each one in turn, or ringing the workshop and hoping somebody remembers.
So mostly, nobody bothers. An engineer arrives at a machine and starts from first principles, diagnosing a fault that two colleagues have already diagnosed. The office is asked whether this unit has failed before and says it will check, then doesn't. A repair-or-replace decision gets made on a hunch, because the alternative is half an hour of digging.
What does not knowing cost?
Worth working out on your own figures rather than taking anyone's word for it.
- Take an engineer's diagnostic time on a fault that has been seen before
- Multiply by however often you think that happens across your fleet or hire stock in a year
- Then add the repairs authorised on assets that had already been repaired twice for the same thing, where the history would have made the write-off obvious
The bigger cost is harder to price.
A customer asking whether this machine has been trouble before, and hearing "I'll have to check", learns something about how well you know your own equipment.
What the automation does
- Reads the question. Someone asks in their own words, by text, WhatsApp or email. The workflow pulls the identifier out, whether that is a serial number, an asset reference, a model or a fleet number.
- Finds the asset in whichever system holds your equipment records. A job management system, or a hire management system like Syrinx or Point of Rental.
- Retrieves every job recorded against it.
- Pulls the detail from each one. Date, engineer, fault reported, repair carried out.
- Writes the reply in date order, turning each visit into a readable line rather than dumping raw job text into a text message.
- Sends it back on whichever channel the question came in on.
It reads, and it never writes.
Nothing on the asset or the jobs is changed, which is what makes it safe to hand to anyone in the field.
What you need first
One thing matters more than everything else here. Your jobs need to record which piece of equipment was worked on, and they need to do it reliably. If that link is patchy, the automation comes back with nothing and looks broken.
The rest is straightforward:
- assets recorded consistently against jobs
- a decision on which channel people ask on
- a view on how far back to go, and how much detail you want per visit
How it gets set up
- We look at your asset data. How consistently equipment is recorded against jobs. It's the make-or-break question, so it's better answered before anything gets built.
- We agree the identifier. What people will actually type when they ask, and whether that matches what your system stores. If your engineers text serial numbers and your system holds asset references, we'll need a step in between.
- We build it together and test it on your own kit. Ask it about machines whose history you already know, and check what comes back.
Common Questions
It says so. Whoever asked gets an answer either way, rather than silence.
It can be made tolerant of the usual variations. If it genuinely can't work out which machine you mean, it tells you what it couldn't find rather than guessing at a different one.
You get the most recent handful and a note saying there are more. An unreadable text message is no more use than no answer at all.
Either. It'll answer any number, or only numbers on a list you've approved.
No. It only reads.
Yes. It reads from wherever the attendances are recorded. That includes hire management systems like Syrinx and Point of Rental, job management systems, and asset registers kept separately.
Ready to ask the machine what happened before?
Get in touch with the Build Concierge team and we’ll set it up around the way you work.
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