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July 2015
MODERN MINING
45
OFF-HIGHWAY TRUCKS
AND EXCAVATORS
feature
Fleet Production and Cost Analysis
The huge investment in ultra-machines means that mines need to get
maximum productivity, utilisation and efficiency out of them and Caterpil-
lar and Barloworld have just the tool to assist in achieving this in the form of
Caterpillar’s Fleet Production and Cost Analysis (FPC) software, which pro-
vides estimates of the productivity and costs associated with owning and
operating equipment.
In continuous development over many years and now in Version 5, the
FPC software was the subject of a presentation by Ian Duthie at the recent
two-day conference on mechanised mining, held at the Birchwood Confer-
ence Centre in Boksburg, which was organised by theWits School of Mining
Engineering in conjunction with Barloworld Equipment.
Duthie looked in detail at the inputs needed by the FPC software and
discussed some of the mistakes that users of the software tend to make. He
concluded that – provided it was used correctly – it was a superb modelling
tool able to assist with equipment selection and mine planning and deliver
realistic and accurate simulations of mining operations.
Africa in contrast to other regions such as North
America where it is widely used on the type of
big construction projects that are not too often
seen any more in our own part of the world.”
On the question of what constitutes an ultra-
truck, Duthie points out that definitions are
necessarily arbitrary but says that Caterpillar
and Barloworld Equipment view anything with
a payload of 290 tonnes and above as falling
within the ultra-class. “These are the trucks
that can work effectively with the big load-
ing tools, namely rope shovels and hydraulic
shovels, and they are typically owned by mines
and stay on a single mine for their entire lives
due to the expense and logistical challenges of
moving them frommine to mine,” he says. “I’ve
yet to see any mining contractors in Southern
Africa operating trucks of this size.”
Projects such as Husab and Sentinel were
planned when the resources boom was still
going strong but the current weakness in
commodity prices has resulted in mining com-
panies cutting back sharply on investment in
new mines (and, for that matter, on expan-
sions at existing operations). Duthie, however,
is confident that the demand for ultra-sized
equipment can only grow. “It’s only a question
of time before the resources sector recovers,”
he says. “Eventually new mines will have to be
One of three Cat 7495 elec-
tric rope shovels supplied to
the Husab uraniummine,
with – in the background –
one of two Cat C175 diesel
engine motivators also
supplied for the project.
developed and many of them will very likely be
of considerable size, as the long-term trend is
towards high volume operations able to exploit
economies of scale. So I think it is safe to say
that prospects for ultra-sized shovels and trucks
over the medium- to long-term are extremely
positive, both globally and in the Southern
African region.”
Photos (unless otherwise acknowledged) courtesy of Barlo-
world Equipment