Caterpillar won’t just sell its advanced mining equipment to a miner because there will only be a return by investing in the whole system, says Craig Watkins, Senior Product Marketing Specialist, Caterpillar Global Mining.
“You can’t just buy a drive-rless truck, because you can’t get the benefit out of it,” says Watkins.
“The one lesson we have learned in this mining technology business over the years is that it is not just about the tools in your tool box and the people and the processes as is as much as it is about the tools. So there is a large change management component. There is a large training component. And when we go through these continuous improvement phases the capability.
“These capabilities—like an autonomous truck, a fleet management system or a proximity awareness system—these are tools in the toolbox to assist, but we still have to take care of and account for the people and the processes involved.”
Watkins touted this efforts at monitoring fatigue.
Caterpillar partnered with Seeing Machines, what he calls a “best in class”, for fatigue management solutions. The technology looks for signs of fatigue and distraction.
“What seeing machines brings to the table is a technology that has cameras and monitors operators for distraction.”
The system scans for operator distraction and “micro sleeps”.
“So if they sleep for a second at a time the system will pick up on that and alert them.”