Performance Monitoring of Remote Assets at Construction Sites

Overview

A large Indian construction house operating major infrastructure projects — spanning maritime structures, airports, hydro power, dams, rapid transit systems, highways, bridges and tunnels — relies on a fleet of 200+ diesel generator sets as primary power sources across geographically dispersed sites. Operating in remote terrains with limited grid access, each DG Set is a critical asset.

Without connectivity, tracking performance, availability and fuel integrity across all sites was nearly impossible. TAS India was engaged to deploy the ADVAIT IIoT cloud platform across the entire DG Set fleet, enabling centralised remote performance monitoring without disrupting ongoing construction activity.

Challenge

Fuel for the DG Sets was procured locally, making it highly vulnerable to pilferage. Without automated monitoring, fuel theft went undetected or was discovered only after significant losses. Manual logs were unreliable, and there was no mechanism to correlate fuel consumption with actual runtime or load.

Approach

TAS India deployed an edge-to-cloud monitoring stack on every DG Set — gathering operational telemetry at the source, transmitting it securely over cellular networks, and consolidating it into a single ADVAIT dashboard at the centralised control centre.

1. 1

   Edge Instrumentation

   TASm2m-EDGE gateways were installed on each DG Set, interfacing with the DG Set controller via RS485 to capture all operational parameters — runtime hours, load, fuel levels and fault states — in real time.

2. 2

   Secure Cloud Transmission

   Data from each gateway is transmitted via GPRS to the ADVAIT cloud platform, enabling continuous monitoring regardless of site location or terrain.

3. 3

   Unified Analytics Dashboard

   All 200+ DG Sets are visible on a single ADVAIT dashboard at the centralised control centre — providing availability status, runtime analytics, specific fuel consumption trends and pilferage alerts across every site simultaneously.

4. 4

   Pilferage Detection Engine

   Automated analytics cross-reference fuel-level readings with engine runtime and load data. Any anomalous fuel drop triggers an immediate alert — with the quantity pilfered estimated and logged for accountability.

System architecture — TASm2m-EDGE Gateway connects the DG Set controller to the ADVAIT cloud platform via GPRS, with access on any device, anytime, anywhere.

Key Achievements

Deploying ADVAIT across all sites gave the construction house complete real-time visibility over its DG Set fleet — from availability and runtime to fuel integrity and pilferage events:

ADVAIT Platform — Daily report showing running hours, fuel consumption, specific fuel consumption, availability and fuel tampering events.

• ✓Asset Availability — real-time status of all 200+ DG Sets with uptime/downtime analytics at the centralised control centre.
• ✓Idle & Running Hours — granular breakdown of Down Time, Idle Running Hours and Total Running Hours per DG Set.
• ✓Load Characteristics — continuous monitoring of load profiles to optimise fuel usage and detect anomalies.
• ✓Specific & Total Fuel Consumption — accurate metering of fuel consumed per DG Set, enabling procurement accountability.
• ✓Fuel Pilferage Alerts — automated detection and alerts for pilferage events, with quantified amounts of fuel pilfered at each incident.
• ✓Pan-Site Visibility — a single cloud platform providing unified visibility across all geographically dispersed construction sites.

Outcome

This deployment demonstrates how a dispersed, hard-to-reach equipment fleet can be brought under unified digital control through targeted edge instrumentation and cloud analytics. With every DG Set continuously reporting performance and fuel telemetry, the construction house now operates its prime-power fleet as a single connected asset class — protecting project timelines, eliminating fuel leakage and building a scalable foundation for connecting other equipment categories across its sites.