Smart Quarry Site can be accessed and used by site operators, managers and executives. Image: Komatsu Australia
As sustainability becomes increasingly important, Smart Quarry Site can help quarries reach their targets. Komatsu Australia discusses how to use the platform best to boost sustainability at the quarry.
As requirements for ESG reporting become more stringent for many Australian businesses, including quarries, it’s important that OEMs continue to support their customers with data and insights that not only drive their business forward but also help them meet and track any sustainability metrics.
Komatsu Australia is strongly committed to environmental best practices and continuously focuses on reducing its environmental impacts and carbon footprint while supporting customers on the net-zero journey through research and development efforts, product support, and expert advice.
Aaron Marsh, national product and solution manager from Komatsu Australia, said it’s important the company meets the challenge of sustainability across all its sectors.
“Quarries are continuously working to extract aggregates, so machines need to be productive and efficient to meet production targets. But quarry fleets now also need to be monitored to manage emissions, with some fleets not having the technology in place to support this or to see where they need to make improvements,” he told Quarry.
“This is where systems like Komatsu’s Smart Quarry Site (SQS) can support fleet operators. It’s our innovative fleet management solution that focuses on five essential areas: site management, production optimisation, machine health monitoring, proactive maintenance and enhanced safety for quarry operations.
“It was designed to give a real-time overview of an entire quarry fleet, and caters to not only Komatsu equipment, but a wide range of other equipment types and various machine makes, making it the ideal choice for managing mixed fleets efficiently.”
Smart Quarry Site is a fleet management tool for quarries. Image: Komatsu Australia
Track a fleet’s carbon footprint
SQS allows users to manage and review site carbon emission trends in approximately real-time. Marsh said the data aggregation from the site visualisation dashboards provides information to site operators, managers, and executives on several measures.
“These include total accumulated fuel, footprint tonnes of CO2, average CO2 per hour, average CO2 per tonne and calls out CO2 by machine utilisation in working and idle hours, really focusing on the effective utilisation of quarry fleets. We also measure the emission trends and load and haul circuits by trucks to understand the emission impact of a particular circuit or material,” he said. “Through analysis of the emission reporting in the dashboard a quarry site can make changes to optimise fleet, pit, load and haul and focus on effective utilisation of the fleet especially around litre per tonne.
“This can lead to immense savings in fuel efficiency. In one of our customers sites, we have seen a measurable saving of 8.6 per cent on litres per tonne, which is equivalent to 81,000 litres of fuel and a CO2 saving of 217 tonnes over 12 months of operation.”
Understand productivity
It’s vital for a quarry owner and manager to track material moved, as quarries have multiple benches and at time move multiple materials.
“Productive throughput to the crusher and ROM is critical, and SQS reports all of this in almost real time to the site allowing site managers to create targets or tonnes per hour KPIs, and act on them immediately,” Marsh said.
“Tracking where material is picked up and where it has been dropped off is also critical, and many of our customers are also running material hoppers and tracking there stockpile movements through SQS, giving them another level of data to track and understand their productivity.”
Smart Quarry Site platform. Image: Komatsu Australia
Manage idle time
Marsh said that tracking effective utilisation is key and not all utilisation is the same.
“Simply increasing utilisation alone is not effective, unproductive cycles, inefficient operations and double handling all require more machine hours and higher fuel burn that can contribute to your emission trends and carbon footprint,” he said.
“Managing bottlenecks and stoppages is a thing of the past now thanks to SQS. To be able to see the fleet activity in almost real time allows the site manager to understand bottlenecks, activities and delays, with SQS automating 95 per cent of this reporting and providing the visualisation to the user as if the quarry manager is standing right in the pit with the machines.
“At one of our SQS customer sites, the quarry management team, through this visualisation, decreased idle time on the load and haul trucks by ight per cent and the face loader increased utilisation by seven per cent, a significant effective utilisation increase.”
On-hand training and support
Komatsu’s expert team visits each quarry site before they start using Smart Quarry Site, to make sure the technology is set up to reach the right targets and troubleshoot any issues the users have.
“When you partner with Komatsu, you don’t just get the product, but a full-service solution backed by our team,” Marsh said.
“Newer quarry models, like our HD605-10, now come with SQS as standard, meaning quarry site managers and operators will have the technology they need to make smart, informed decisions at their fingertips.
“We want to make sure we are fully supporting our customers with solutions and insights right across their quarry site – whether that be metrics for ESG reporting, understanding their productivity levels or maximising their fleets to be more efficient and profitable.”
Komatsu is a platinum partner of the IQA 2024 National Conference in Adelaide from October 15–17. The Komatsu team at the conference will be able to discuss the benefits of the Smart Quarry Site and how it can benefit your quarry. •
For more information, visit komatsu.com.au
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