A pour does not wait. Once the truck is batched and rolling, a concrete crew has a fixed window to place, vibrate, screed, and finish - and a missing poker or a dead saw turns a routine pour into overtime and rework. Masonry and concrete contractors rarely lose equipment outright; they lose it to somewhere - the other crew’s van, the job that struck last month, the corner of the yard under a tarp. This guide covers what to track, how to assign kit to crews and pours, and the maintenance habits that keep slurry-soaked machines alive.
What you will learn
- Why concrete work burns through equipment
- What to track, and how granular to go
- Assign kit to crews and pours
- Maintenance in an abrasive trade
- Setting up in a fortnight
- FAQ
Why concrete work burns through equipment
- Time pressure overrides process. When the truck is twenty minutes out, whoever needs a vibrator takes the nearest one. Nothing gets written down at 6am with concrete on the way.
- The material destroys the evidence. Slurry and dust coat tools until a grey machine with a grey label is anonymous. Engraved IDs fill in; stickers peel under wash-down.
- Gear stays behind between phases. The placing crew leaves; forms, props, and screed rails stay until strike - weeks later, when nobody remembers what went in.
- Crews share by default. A poker drive passed between gangs mid-pour has no paper trail, and both foremen will swear it went back on the other van.
- Consumables and assets blur. Diamond blades cost real money but get treated as disposables, so nobody notices which saw eats them or how fast.
The pattern: equipment changes hands at exactly the moments when nobody has a free hand, so the record has to be made by the handover itself - in seconds, on a phone.
What to track, and how granular to go
The register only stays true if its granularity matches reality:
| Asset class | Typical items | How to track |
|---|---|---|
| Powered plant | Mixers, power floats, ride-on trowels, cut-off and masonry saws | Per item, with serial and service dates |
| Vibration kit | Poker vibrators, drive units, external vibrators | Per item; label drive and poker as a paired kit |
| Screeding and finishing | Vibrating screeds, bull floats, finishing hand tools | Screeds per item; hand tools per item only above a value threshold |
| Formwork and props | Panels, props, clamps, ties | By counted set, never per panel |
| Access | Ladders, towers, scaffolding | Per item, with inspection dates |
| RPE | Respirators for silica dust | Per item where face-fit tested |
| Consumables | Diamond blades, curing compound, fixings | Stock levels with reorder points |
Drills, grinders, and breakers - the general power tool kit - follow the universal rule: record the serial when you label, because an unrecorded serial is an unrecoverable tool. Each asset record should carry a photo too; grey dust makes everything look alike.
Assign kit to crews and pours
Accountability in this trade means one owner per item, always:
- Crew kit is checked out to the gang foreman. When crews reshuffle, the kit transfers - a ten-minute scan-through that doubles as a stock-take.
- Job equipment - the site mixer, forms, props, screed rails - is assigned to the job. At strike, the job’s open-assignment list is the load list for the truck home.
- Shared high-value plant - the ride-on trowel, the big floor saw - works as a bookable pool: checked out per pour, returned after, with the register showing who has it and who is next.
Tip: put the QR label where slurry never reaches - the motor housing or inside a guard, not near the blade or drum - and make wiping it part of washdown.
Maintenance in an abrasive trade
Concrete is the rare material that actively tries to become part of your equipment. Three habits keep machines alive:
- Washdown is the return. Capture condition at the moment the kit is scanned back in - a poker returned caked is a poker that fails at the next pour.
- Oil and wear items on a schedule. Mixer and trowel gearboxes, poker couplings, saw bearings: service dates on the asset, reviewed weekly, not when something seizes.
- History decides repair vs replace. A drive unit on its third rebuild in a year is telling you something; the repair log on the record makes that visible.
Setting up in a fortnight
- Walk the yard and one van. List what you actually own, with serials and photos - not what last year’s spreadsheet says.
- Label as you go. Laminated QR labels on everything per-item tracked; formwork gets set counts.
- Create the owners first. Gangs, vans, and live jobs are the structure the assets hang off.
- Check everything out to today’s reality, even if that reality is “most of it is on the depot slab job”.
- Enforce one habit: every handover and every washdown is a scan.
If you also run demolition or excavation crews, the same owner-per-item model extends across the whole fleet.
Where AMPthilly fits
AMPthilly keeps the whole picture in one register: each mixer, saw, and poker gets a record with serial, photos, status, and current owner; printable QR labels scan with a normal phone camera in the browser - no app for the crew to install; checkouts and transfers log who took what and when; and damage reports with photos stay on the machine’s history for the repair-or-replace call. The free plan covers 3 users and 25 assets, no card required - enough to pilot one crew’s kit. Plans and limits are on the pricing page.
FAQ
What equipment should a concrete contractor track? Powered plant, vibration kit, screeds, ladders, and face-fit RPE per item; formwork by counted set; blades and curing compound as stock.
How do masonry crews keep track of shared tools? One owner per item at all times, every handover recorded as a scan-based transfer, plus a weekly overdue review.
How do you stop equipment going missing between pour and strike? Assign it to the job. The job’s open-assignment list at strike is the checklist for what comes home.
Do QR labels survive concrete work? Laminated labels away from slurry and grinding do; record serials so a destroyed label can be reprinted without losing history.
Should formwork be tracked piece by piece? No - by counted set per job. Count out, count back at strike, and treat the variance as the loss figure.
The takeaway
Concrete equipment goes missing in the gaps between pour, strike, and the next job - so close the gaps. Track plant per item and formwork by set, give every item one owner, make washdown the return scan, and put service dates on the record. A tool like AMPthilly handles the register, QR labels, and checkout history - free for 3 users and 25 assets - but the principle costs nothing: no anonymous kit, ever.