Eagle River Coal recently turned to Fleet Management experts for support in managing a mining fleet that was experiencing spiraling maintenance and repair costs, and poor machine availability.
With nearly a hundred years of industry and product knowledge Caterpillar strives to help customers become more profitable and efficient, which is why many rely on Cat for assistance in fleet management.
Job Site Solutions Fleet Management Services provide industry expertise to customers who are focused on getting the most out of data and analytics to maximize uptime and efficiency of their equipment while minimizing the cost of ownership.
Eagle River Coal, based in southern Illinois, runs a surface mine operation that produces around 600,000 tons of coal a year. The company has a fleet of quality equipment but had exceeded its monthly maintenance and repair budget for more than 12 months straight, and fleet availability had dipped.
Job Site Solutions Helps Create a Game Plan
The Job Site Solutions Commercial Manager quickly became a trusted advisor working closely with Cat dealer Fabick and Caterpillar mining to first embark on an exhaustive review of the customer’s fleet. They determined the status of each machine in operation, its long-term viability, and what immediate, short- and long-term steps needed to be taken to realize efficiency. This valuable information helped Eagle River create a game plan.
Eagle River Hits Monthly Budget with On-Going Fleet Management Services
Even the best game plan will fail without a coordinator to ensure all the players are on the same page, so the next step in the process was to provide on-going implementation support..
A Caterpillar Job Site Solutions Implementation Manager supported by Fabick provided weekly guidance on condition monitoring, backlog management, planning and scheduling as well as parts logistics. After working with JSS for three months, Eagle River was hitting its monthly maintenance and repair budget for the first time in over a year and delivering a double-digit machine availability improvement.
How Did They Do It?
JSS helped ensure:
- Machines were no longer run to failure
- Emerging failures were identified earlier
- The root causes of failures were accurately addressed
- Maintenance was not skipped in favor of production
- Backlog repair issues were addressed during expected maintenance downtime and not allowed to develop into catastrophic failure
When an oil sample showed a problem in the axle compartment, for example, root cause analysis was completed to recognize the issue was only an $8,000 brake repair versus a $50,000 axle replacement.
The Bottom Line
“Fleet management is extremely important to a customer’s bottom line,” said Craig Olmstead, managing director of Job Site Solutions. “Our team helps customers stay ahead of problems and drive their fleet to maximum efficiency, which saves them both money and time.”
