Steps in Fleet Selection ©Dr. B. C. Paul 2000, revised 2008 Note- General steps and methodologies found in these slides roughly follow material found in Surface Mining manuals by SME and literature published by Caterpillar Equipment Co. This presentation includes screen shots from the FPC program compiled by Caterpillar Equipment Company.

Sizing Truck and Loader Fleets l 30 years ago would have been all manual methods l Today have computer aided versions of same manual methods l Also have versions that consider event probabilities l Full computer simulation

Class Approach l Will show features of manual methods Features still drive most computer aided methods l Then show applications of computer software Things still need to be dealt with in full computer simulations

A Software Package (Caterpillar’s FPC) Starting FPC Of course can also Be done from a Desktop icon

After a Picture of a Truck We Get the Initial Screen

Highlight File and Pull Down the Menu Pick New (for New Project)

FPC Opens With the Project Tab Active I start out entering a 1- Job Name 2- Job Description 3- Prepared For 4- Prepared By 5- Study Date

I Must Pick My Unit and Display Standards Pick Metric or English Units with a Radio Button Pick production Targets measured in Weight or volume Pick Decimal Format Pick Currency

Pick Project Specific Information Enter Your Fuel Cost For Diesel Enter Your Planning Time unit Enter Your Number Of hours per planning unit

Commentary l Diesel Fuel Costs Often mine machinery is run off highway so there is no highway tax on diesel (no 46 cents and usually bought on bulk contract) Called “Red Dog” because sometimes put a dye in it (so you’ll get busted for on highway use) l Most planning units are by the year

Specialty Items Needed l “Shift Efficiency” – how much of the scheduled time is actually spent working equipment An average is 50 minutes/hour or about 83-84% l Operator Efficiency Truck is capable of certain performance – often not realized by human operators According to caterpillar studies operators approach mechanical limits more closely as haul gets longer By picking operator efficiency by Haul distance the program will use caterpillars operator studies results

A Bunch of What? l Problem of Bunching If have a lot of trucks they tend to arrive in clusters rather than evenly spread Means loaders will loose some time with no trucks and trucks will wait in line even when perfectly matched Caterpillar’s studies and bunching factors can be used by selecting average bunching.

Finish the Fill In I’m putting in 84% For my shift Efficiency I’m calling for Average bunching I’m having operator Efficiency estimated By haul distance

Optimizing? l Try several different fleets l Get Cost of Each Fleet l Pick the Fleet with the lowest cost that you have confidence in Usually there are some assumption or preferences that you will not just pick the cheapest

Main Steps in Fleet Selection l Step #1 Visualization and Matching - Equipment must fit the mine l Step #2 Develop Cycle Times - Need to know how much the equipment can produce to know how much equipment you need l Step #3 Identify Quantities of Equipment Needed

Main Steps Continued l Step #4 - Cross Check the Selection for practical fit l Step #5 - Estimate Economics l Step #6 - Compare Different Fleets l Step #7 - Make the Selection