At the 2019 SME Annual Conference & Expo in Denver next week, Caterpillar via A. Reid and A. Varela will give an insight into one of the first market deployments of its new 320 short ton 794 AC haul truck. The GAN-Micare coal mine is located in the Rio Escondido basin in Mexico. Micare produces coal for energy creation used in two thermoelectric plants, whose joint capacity provide almost 10% of Mexico’s energy.

Caterpillar together with dealer Madisa were awarded an eight ultra-class mining truck deal with GAN-Micare in 2017. This introduced the 320 short ton 794 AC electric drive haul truck to the Mexican mining market. The 794 AC Performance Implementation project was a focused effort to support the high availability market introduction Caterpillar has had with the 794 AC. Fleet availability represents one of the key components of cost per ton. The improvement objective was the creation of a fleet uptime program in collaboration with the dealer and customer.

The program included documentation of a time usage model, machine stoppage categorisation, data reconciliation with customer, ongoing performance communication between the Madisa and Caterpillar teams, creation of a tailored KPI standard work, and the implementation and training of a fleet performance governance system through Caterpillar’s proprietary machine uptime tracking system Digital Performance Plus.