Checking On Production ©2009 Dr. B. C. Paul Note – These slides contain material from slides dating back to 2000 and also contains screen shots from the program FPC developed by Caterpillar Equipment Company

Where We Are At l We have a working truck and loader fleet with at least reasonable cycles l Now we need to see if we are in fact meeting our production target

Click on the Fleet Production Subtab under Production and Cost

Uh-Oh Bad News The fleet can only Produce 47 million Tons per year We would need 3,921 Hours per year to Meet our target It would take us 1.41 years

Do We Have Efficiency Problems? Operators usually don’t get full performance Out of their equipment. The longer the Haul Cat time studies show the closer the Operator gets to theoretical maximum. We Can change this with experience or if we Have a better system but in our case at 95% We really can’t better things to much here (besides that our tires are constraining us)

The Other Operator Efficiency Control Point Under Project Tab We start out telling the Computer whether to use Cat Research to set operator Efficiency or whether to Over-ride at the first

An Efficiency Summary We have a shift Efficiency that tells us How many minutes of Every hour our crews Really work (breaks – Time to get crews to Work place etc) We have operator Efficiency % of machine Capability our operator Actually gets while Running it

Efficiency l My efficiencies appear to be realistically set l (There is a problem on fleet availability in the program itself but we’ll deal with that later)

Other Possible Causes The theoretical production Of our loaders exceeds Our trucks That’s Odd – this is telling Us we have a truck Bottle-neck Lets go back and check Our cycle times (found under fleet Production subtab)

Here is My Problem I picked my number of Loaders to match the trucks With a 23 minute cycle time Then when I had tire heating Trouble I built in a tire cooling Time at the Dump point adding Almost 9 minutes to the cycle. Of course my trucks with the Longer cycle time are not Pulling their weight or Balancing the loaders

Recalculating My Truck to Loader Ratio l (Incidentally note that I keep revising estimates as I get more info. This is my 3 rd try at this calculation) l minute truck cycle/ 4.06 minute loader cycle 7.67 trucks per loader 20 loaders*7.67 trucks = Up the trucks to 154 (darn those hot tires)

Better Not Perfect The fleet is now close but still Needs some adjusting

Help in Adjusting – The Fleet Size Subtab It tries a range in The number of Trucks to see What kind of Production and Cost you get (Obviously trying 1 to 4 trucks is A bad joke)

Looking at 150 to 165 Trucks Adding trucks isn’t helping. The loaders are maxed out.

Up The Loaders to 23 (I was after about a 15% boost because I must Also handle the extra 3.5 million secret tons)

Select the Secret Course to Check Production

Set My Cycle Time Parameters

Check My Tire Temp Actually the sand Dune trip slows things Down so I don’t Need as much of A tire cooling break Go Back and Adjust The dump time and Cooling break

Ok That Just About Does It You may have to bounce between Screens to get the adjustment just right

Now for the Check The years required Ratio is not too Precise, but looking At the tonnage About 175 would Seem close

Check Out the Fleet Production for the Two Routes 2, = (That’s close enough to 2772 that I think I’ve got my Fleet)

Accomplished and Remaining l We now have a truck and loader fleet that can meet our production requirements l Optimization procedures now mean trying different fleets that will work and picking the most economical that we have confidence in l Just One little thing – I’ve been holding out one more needed check