With Jeremy Callaghan.
It is all well and good talking about what goes on behind the scenes into developing haulage data parameters at the office, far removed from the mine sites hundreds of kilometres away. It can be hard to decipher what this means for the operator in the cab, and the manager onsite in day-to-day operations.
Product Solutions Engineer Jeremy Callaghan says that often paper-based systems are preferred because that’s how reporting has always been done – it’s comfortable. In an industry that is conservative as a whole, it can be difficult to see the benefits of an automated digital haulage reporting system. However, once a digital system is implemented and used, the benefits and convenience outweighs that of a paper-based system. Jeremy has also written about paper-based systems versus automated, digital reporting.
Jeremy also says that site culture can contribute to reluctance of reporting red flags.
“Operators tend to be good at alerting supervisors when undertrucked, but they are very happy to be overtrucked, even by a large amount,” Jeremy said, which contributes to its own set of problems, as he has written about earlier.
Jeremy outlined several factors to look at in iControl when detecting red flags:
- Waiting time on truck for a digger: This is generally a sign of being undertrucked.
- Excessive queueing time: This is generally a sign of being overtrucked.
He said that his background in production leads him to believe that payload rates of each truck is the biggest factor of haulage.
“You want to carry as many tonnes as you can per truck cycle without stepping into an overloaded state,” Jeremy said, “Certain levels you can’t step over, and certain trucks will actually de-rate their power if they are hauling over a limit.”
From a production standpoint, having real-time data presented to you about haulage is valuable and can prevent problems occurring onsite where loading occurs.
