Stephen Howarth of the AEA, Kevin Howells from Datatag and Dave Luscombe of the CEA celebrate the 500,000th machine fitted with CESAR.

The Official CESAR (Construction Equipment Security and Registration) Scheme has reached a major milestone in its rollout across the construction plant and agricultural machinery industry.

In November this year, the 500,000th machine fitted with the security marking system rolled off the production line.

The CESAR scheme, which is powered by Datatag and owned by the CEA (Construction Equipment Association) and the AEA (Agricultural Engineers Association), was launched in 2007 to combat machinery theft across the industry.

It uses multi-layered technologies supplied by security specialists Datatag, to deter equipment theft.

These include the uniquely numbered tamper-evident triangular ID plates, hidden RFID transponders, microscopic Datadots, and a unique forensic DNA solution.

Once fitted these technologies are almost impossible to remove successfully and when recorded on Datatag鈥檚 secure database, are accessible to the police 24/7enabling them to identify any machine at the roadside night or day.

To celebrate the achievement, team members from the CEA, AEA, and Datatag met at one of the Midlands CESAR dealers, Sharmans Of Stamford.

Dave Luscombe, CEA鈥檚 head of special projects, said, 鈥淭he idea that we would one day achieve half a million pieces of construction plant and agricultural machinery, that would be protected with CESAR, when the Scheme was launched back in 2007, was just a dream for everyone involved.

鈥淭oday we can all celebrate that dream becoming a reality and I would like to thank every one of our manufacturer members for the support that they have shown for CESAR over the years.鈥�

CESAR Security System is now standard across many new Hitachi machines (L to R: Superintendent Andy Huddleston of Northumbria Police, David Roberts, CEO of Hitachi CM (UK), Kevin Howells, CEO of Datatag, Rob Oliver, former Chief Executive of the CEA, Rachel Hamilton, Business Development Executive of Datatag, Phil Patterson of Northumbria Police.)

Today over 85% of new construction and agricultural machinery in the UK is now fitted with the system as standard.

Manufacturers JCB, Hitachi and Doosan, as well as equipment rental companies GAP and Sunbelt Rentals, are among those that have signed up to the CESAR scheme.

An additional benefit to contractors that have equipment fitted with CESAR, is that many leading insurers provide insurance premium discounts of up to 20% off for all protected and registered equipment.

The scheme has gone from strength to strength thanks to the introduction of the new Emissions Compliance Verification (ECV) product, which means it can now be used for security and emissions identification and also asset management.

In 2017 Doosa鈥檚 DX85R-3 mini-excavator was unveiled as the 250,000th CESAR-marked machine in the UK. Kim Dudley, Regional Manager 鈥� Northern Europe for Doosan (left), was presented with a certificate by Kevin Howells, the CEO/MD of Datatag ID Ltd (right)

The CEA said that it is this evolution of the original scheme that has enabled CESAR to reach this half-million milestone.

Managing director of Datatag, Kevin Howells, said, 鈥淥ur technology has been supporting the Scheme for nearly 15 years and has helped to create a proven deterrent for theft of construction and agricultural machinery. This milestone is an outstanding achievement and we look forward to celebrating the 1,000,000th machine in the not too distant future!鈥�