1. Decrease idle time

As fuel gets more expensive, every minute of excess idle time increases your owning and operating costs. Productivity technology tracks working and idle hours alongside fuel consumption. This helps you identify when each loader and hauler sit idle and for how long. It can alert you to long idle events — like a haul truck idling nine minutes or more — and tell you when it happened, where it happened and what occurred before and after to cause that delay. That’s information you can use to reduce your fuel burn and costs.

2. Reduce inefficiencies

One of the biggest causes of inefficiency in load-and-haul operations is bunching at the crusher or loading tool. With productivity technology, you have immediate access to all of your machines’ “stopped” events. Use that knowledge to coach your operators — like pointing out times when they could peel off and dump at a stockpile instead. Rooting out inefficiencies like these is a simple but effective way to reduce cycle-time slowdowns and raise productivity. 

3. Improve cycle times

Do you know how long it takes your loaders and haulers to travel from Point A to Point B and back to Point A? Productivity technology does, and it can tip you off to opportunities to shave off time. For example, the data might show you a number of stopped events on your haul trucks — indicating a potential pinch point on your haul road, like an intersection where trucks are forced to wait. Based on that information, you may decide to change the flow of traffic to eliminate stopped events and speed up cycle times.

4. Monitor production daily

Using productivity technology is like running an everyday production study. In addition to idle time and cycle time data, you can also see load counts (how many loads did each machine perform each shift, where did they come from and where did they go?) and payload (how much material did each machine move, where did it come from and where did it go?). You can use that information to determine which machines — and how many — you need to meet your daily productivity targets. It’s a smart way to make sure your everyday fleet mix is the right match for your crusher production.