The XMOR Bucket at the Boral Wollert site.
Quarry sat down with Andrew Rankin, quarry manager at Boral Wollert, to see how the XMOR Bucket is performing after one year.
After more than 12 months with the unique excavator bucket, Boral Wollert quarry manager Andrew Rankin was clear on the performance of the XMOR Bucket from ONTRAC Group.
“I had some doubts initially, as with anything you trial, but it’s been really good,” he said.
“And it’s been on some of the hardest rock as well. While it’s been on some of the softer stuff when it’s been on overburden, some of the rock we’ve been dealing with and the conditions, it’s been dealing with a lot of oversize; it hasn’t been all good digging.”
Boral’s Wollert Quarry is located about 30 kilometres from Melbourne CBD. Its materials supply some of Victoria’s biggest projects, including the North East Link.
In the 2023 August edition of Quarry, Boral confirmed a 45 per cent increase in bucket capacity in cubic metres since switching to the XMOR Bucket.
“I can tell you that it is using less fuel, the operators feel more comfortable with that bucket on it than a standard bucket digging, it’s more productive – we’ve done the numbers on that and they still stand up. And it’s probably more productive, like I said, in overburden or bulk density material,” Rankin said
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Boral gets more with the XMOR bucket
BANG FOR BUCK
While the quarry has seen benefits from the XMOR in its hard rock activities, it has found significant advantages from the bucket when it removed overburden.
“When you’re bulk digging overburden, that’s when you notice the major benefits … that’s due to the density of the product. With the hard rock, we’re still getting more capacity [compared to] a standard bucket, but stuff like sand, clays, all those materials, that’s where you get the full bang for buck out of the weight of the bucket,” Rankin said.
Rankin said that shots can vary from brickette size to larger sizes on site at Wollert and confirmed that a good blast allows them to maximise the XMOR Bucket’s performance up to 40 per cent increase in tonnes per hour output as an isolated loading tool.
“The feedback from operators is still good. They haven’t got the drag through the rock, which is harder on operator and machine [because] with the XMOR Bucket on, you haven’t got the surface contact area on the bucket that you’re scraping over when you’re digging shot rock, so it’s definitely smoother,” he said.
“As soon as you put a traditional bucket on it or they get on another machine, they comment that the machine is working harder and it’s harder on them. If you look at ergonomics in a machine, some of those are all around an operator and how he feels in it, so that’s a win in itself.”
UNIQUE DESIGN
The XMOR Bucket’s unique inverted tub and heel segment design enables it to have a greater capacity than a standard bucket whilst also reducing downtime.
Rankin said that the XMOR Bucket when compared to a traditional bucket, does not shy away from anything that a standard bucket would do. “I would say it’s better, it’s just the repair I was concerned about over the long term, but it’s passing that test.”
“To be fair, I expected that we’d get repair work on that design and probably on the keel, that always seemed to me the place that we’d have issues, and it has, but nothing major.”
“There’s no wash, hardly any there, which that’s one of the benefits of that buckets as well, and usually you need 12 months to identify that”
Rankin has been happy that the bucket’s unique design has enabled it to maintain its increased capacity. Other buckets can require the addition of another skin, which reduces capacity and increases the bucket’s weight.
“Generally, repair work on a standard bucket is building a skin in, or you do something, and you reduce volume again and add more weight to it. So, it would be comparable or maybe a touch better in the overall,” he said.
This is due to the high-quality Hardox 500 Tuf and Strenx Performance steel, which delivers high performance while ensuring a lower weight and flexibility compared to standard buckets on the market.
“I had a manager say to me, ‘Oh, it looks flimsy’ I said, ‘Yes, it’s not though, it’s around that design that the strength comes from’. If you just look at it, it does look light, but it’s proved itself, definitely here.”
“Again, the whole bucket, if you can buy in in parts, that’s great. We haven’t had to do a side or a floor in it yet, which is great, but we’ve had some minor repair work done in that area, which isn’t unusual.”
The XMOR Bucket in operation. Image: ONTRAC Group
ONGOING SUPPORT
As an Australian-owned and operated company, ONTRAC Group is the exclusive manufacturer and distributor of XMOR Buckets in the country and has the capability to provide full support in its facility.
The XMOR bucket’s benefits are still holding true since Quarry last spoke to Rankin 12 months ago.
“It’s been really good. We’ve had no problems getting parts for it or anything like that, and that can be an issue when you try something new, and that was something I thought about initially,” he said.
“But there’s been no problems with that.”
After seeing how well the bucket performs, Rankin has recommended the product to other quarry managers.
“Other Boral sites have called me and managers from New South Wales, and I have recommended it. Especially the sites with the lower abrasion rates and the like,” Rankin said.
Rankin said he had no regrets about the purchase of the XMOR Bucket which had helped Boral Wollert’s operations.
“Cheaper is not always the best, I’ve always been a big believer in let’s measure apples with apples,” he said.
ONTRAC Group will be at the IQA 2024 National Conference in Adelaide from October 15–17. The company will have team members at its stall to discuss what the XMOR Bucket could achieve on a site. •
For more information, visit ontracgroup.com.au
The post ONTRAC Group: Boral believes in the XMOR Bucket appeared first on Quarry.