In response, the PA team spent time at the site to assess the mine’s twice-daily shift-change process, establish a measurement baseline, and identify opportunities for improvement. During the engagement, the PA team learned that the shift change procedure consisted of breaking the fleet into two sections. The trucks in Section One parked no later than 6:15 (am/pm) and the trucks in Section Two parked no later than 7:15 (am/pm).
The mine employed this staggered approach in an effort to facilitate tasks such as:
- Refueling in the eight-unit fuel bay
- Performing necessary maintenance checks
- Conducting operator safety pre-checks
The PA team also discovered that the mine was making manual parkup assignments at the beginning and end of every shift, leading to delays and inefficiencies.
Working with the mine’s dispatchers, the PA team temporarily revised the mine’s shift change procedures. Now, manual parkup assignments were used for the trucks in Section One and automated parkup assignments were used for the trucks in Section Two.
To help the mine realize full value from automated assignments, the PA team implemented the DISPATCH System Parkup module. With this added functionality, the dispatcher could monitor and/or control the assignment of equipment to a park-up location at shift change. After a week of assisted operation training with the PA team, the mine was able to fully-automate parkup assignments for both sections across all shifts.
In the new permanent workflow, the dispatcher ranks the trucks according to fuel level. The Parkup module then automatically assigns trucks that need to refuel to the first break at the fuel bay. Trucks that do not need additional fuel are assigned to the second break and parked-up at the tiedown bay.