Thursday, June 23 rd, 2016
Since it was established on 23rd March 1815 and subsequently incorporated in 1875, Singleton Birch Ltd has grown to become a global supplier of lime products and services, keeping its independence over its 200-year history. The key to its ongoing success has been its ability to innovate and adapt to customer demand, particularly when it has come to the changing needs of the sectors it supplies.
So to find out all about its latest ‘Connected Fleet’ innovation, using EMSolutions from Finning,
Finning News visited its Melton Ross Quarry in North Lincolnshire, where we caught up with Assistant Quarry Manager, Tom Gardner and his new Cat® 988K loading shovels.
Tom: “In this industry, keeping your competitive edge and maintaining profitability is all about how you maintain productivity, whilst processing each tonne of end product in the most cost effective way, day in day out.
“In practical terms, when it comes to the extraction of chalk from our Melton Ross quarry, we have to move around a million tonnes each year from the quarry face to our crushers, as efficiently as possible.
This equates to around 5000 tonnes a day, so in order to achieve this we have invested in a new Cat fleet including two Cat 988K loading shovels. These units are tasked with moving blasted material to our crushers, which in turn are linked to a conveyor belt system to our main processing facility.
“When the time came to replace our existing loading shovels, instead of just focusing on the latest units available, we wanted to take the opportunity to look at new and innovative equipment solutions, to see what was available outside of the general performance of an individual manufacturer’s product.
“I was able to see first hand the whole range of data from the machines we would be able to get access to. But what really appealed to me was the fact that the Finsight advisor would be the dedicated person in the Finsight team monitoring my equipment and making sure we made the most of the data available.
“With the performance of the Caterpillar equipment being very similar to other units we were considering, it was the connected fleet solution that really helped us to make the decision to move to Caterpillar. In the end we opted to purchase two Cat 988K loading shovels, a Cat 972M Wheel Loader, and a Cat 725C Articulated Truck.
“Working with our Finsight advisor, we have since setup monitoring of payload, fuel burn, loading and idling times, as well as parameters for immediate alerts on key component performance data to support preventative maintenance.
“We now also get regular performance reports, which we use as a learning tool to help the team understand where efficiency gains can be made, with the aim of improving overall performance, whilst reducing wear and tear on each unit.
“From an uptime perspective, by tracking trending data over the lifecycle of equipment, we will now aim to schedule in machine maintenance when it is convenient to us.
With every part of the business bought into this new approach, from management to operators, I can safely say that this latest investment in our 200 year history is very exciting. It will certainly have a positive impact on the future for our business, supporting our key goals to be safe, productive and for everyone to be happy.”
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