FINNING UK & Ireland has revealed how it completed an 18-month consultancy for Imerys UK at its Cornwall site, which has initially identified potential annual savings of more than £600,000.
The team at Finning was approached by Imerys to identify operational cost and CO2 emissions reductions at the firm’s site in Cornwall, which employs around 1,000 people and produces 700,000 tonnes of kaolin per year.
Analysis of the site included observing operator behaviour, haul routes, site conditions, and fleet health. The Finning team identified several factors impacting operational efficiency, including several sharp haul route turns and haul routes with gradients greater than 10%, resulting in increased fuel burn and cycle time.
The team also looked at dump area management, jobsite set-up, as well as considering the operational requirements of dealing with legacy stockpiles and multiple face heights.
The findings of the study were presented to the management team at Imerys alongside indicative data on improving fuel burn, minimising machine wear and tear, optimising loading times, and reducing idle and waiting times.
Glen Heather, Imerys mining technical engineer central area, who has been working alongside the Finning team said the data, modelling, and operational advice proved ‘invaluable’ in quantifying the cost of not making improvements.
He said, “The consultancy support from Finning has enabled us to quantify the cost savings for a range of improvements, such as road widening, that will optimise operational efficiency across the site. The data provided also enables us to identify which improvements to prioritise to deliver the greatest savings.
“We knew we needed to improve our plant productivity to improve our environmental performance, reduce the cost of wear and tear on our machines and cut our fuel costs. What we didn’t know with accuracy was how much not changing them was costing us.”
Ross Marshall, continuous improvement advisor at Finning, said, “We identified lots of operational changes for the team at Imerys and highlighted key changes to management, infrastructure and operator techniques using Caterpillar quarry modelling solutions. To demonstrate productivity and increased efficiencies, the specialised Cat modelling software also presented and simulated cost savings to justify management making the on-site improvements. And, in collaboration with the Imerys team, we used the modelling solution to demonstrate how Imerys could make a 10 percent decrease in cycle times on site.
“When you consider the number of assets operating at this site, it was important to simulate the impact that small incremental gains have on the amount of fuel efficiency and machine wear and tear. Visiting this unique site to get an accurate view of the whole operation was essential as there were legacy issues with access roads being both steep and narrow meaning they were struggling to achieve efficient dump truck times because they were having to pull into laybys which was racking up idling costs.
“Operator experience is also vital in achieving maximum site productivity, and because of our work Imerys is committed to a program of training and so far, 16 of their operators have undertaken our proprietary eco-Drive training which shows them how to improve the machine efficiencies.
“What’s most helpful to site operations teams is that we can simulate and carry out physical surveys to show what good looks like for them, so they can see if making the changes we propose will give them a good return on investment.”
Moving forwards Finning will continue to provide service support to all equipment on site, ranging from full repair to preventive maintenance.
