For the first time at a French quarry, Trimble Loadrite has installed on-site and in wheeled loaders the firm’s Loadrite 360 payload weighing system with automated communication. Operational since the beginning of the year at GSM-Italcementi’s Marliens site in Burgundy, the innovative solution could become the norm for remotely and efficiently monitoring wheeled loaders’ payloads in all french quarries. Jean-Noël Onfield reports.
At the entrance to the Marliens quarry, near Dijon, eastern France, a truck containing a male customer stops at an innovative touch screen terminal, he winds his truck cab window down and keys in his materials’ order. While navigating a menu, a camera reads his truck’s license plates, recognises the model and allows the customer to drive his truck on to the site.
Moments later, the operator of a wheeled loader in the quarry is informed via radio frequency communication of the customer’s arrival. Details of his order, including his identification via his truck license plate, the product and quantity of his order, and the destination of his purchased quarried material, are automatically placed on the wheeled loader operator’s own in-cabin touch screen. The operator then only has to move their machine to a relevant material stockpile and load the requested amount, and then deliver it to the male customer.
After the male customer has obtained the correct material payload, he returns to an output terminal which issues him with a completed delivery ticket. Printed completed order information is then sent electronically to the main Marliens quarry computer billing system so he can be issued with a bill.
Meanwhile, the wheeled loader operator who has just finished fetching and delivering the male customer’s order has used his in-cabin touch screen to flag up other loading orders placed in the input terminal which he is now free to attend to.
The typical scenario described above shows the day-to-day operation of the highly innovative, yet, at the same time, extremely efficient and simple to use Loadrite 360 system at the Marliens quarry.
At the heart of the device, which allows users to customise the tolerances in weighing, is its modem Loadrite LCC ‘intelligence’, providing communication between the input terminal, the wheeled loader and the output terminal. Through radio frequency, it ensures full traceability of all the on-site operations: working time, posting, accumulated loads and cycle times, among other things.
"Originally, we wanted to save the driver of the loader operations without added value. There are also issues of security and economic performance on this type of site where it is difficult to hold a full-time rocker agent. This all leads to our use of an automatic weighing terminal solution,” said José De Oliveira, head of exploitation at GSM Côte d'Or.
The advantage of the
In addition to the input/output terminals, the central unit and the radio link, the Loadrite 360 system includes wheeled loader onboard payload weighing and the driver interface. The technology enabling the onboard weighing includes transconductance, triggers, indicators, slope compensation kit, data communication module and the wheeled loader operator touch screen. The system’s home screen displays the number of trucks waiting for work in a single quarry area, their order of arrival at the stockpile and their waiting time.
Each wheeled loader fitted with the Trimble Loadrite system is connected to the Marliens quarry intranet, with its operation known continuously in real time. Information produced by the Loadrite 360 for quarry managers and wheeled loader operators includes wheeled loaders’ loading times, time taken to move material stock, the number of customer trucks loaded, and the tonnage volumes loaded onto customer trucks versus tonnage placed in storage. All these are said by Trimble Loadrite to be parameters offering a real dashboard for gaining payload accuracy, speed and ease of management.
For the wheeled loader operators at the Marliens quarry, including Michel Devillers, the Loadrite 360 onboard automated payload weighing solution has been a revelation.
“With the terminals and onboard weighing system communicating with each other, we no longer have to enter the order,” explains Devillers. “We just follow the instructions that are automatically displayed in the cabin and comply with what is displayed on the screen. There is no more risk of errors on the product or on the quantities delivered. This greatly simplifies our work because it no longer involves billing - and no paper. This helps us better manage our work on-site in relation to the posted request. We just verify that the license plate matches, and then one can concentrate on driving, on loading and priority customers.”
Now in its eighth month of operation, the system is said to have been a real success by Marliens quarry manager Christophe Dubost. “The old system was generating a lot of tedious manual entry and could be misleading. The new one is much simpler, user-friendly and reliable. The risks of error are discarded. It optimises the use of the loader and means we can access all the operational data of the machine. Since becoming operational, I have seen much time-saving on loading and therefore the rotation of the trucks. Work priorities are also better managed."
Dubost says that as well as "significantly" improving loading cycle times, the system’s use also keeps deviation from the target load to a minimum. This is ensuring GSM’s rapid return on investment, and has led the company to consider the deployment of the Loadrite 360 system at other GSM-
GSM-Italcementi Cat loader’s a 360 star
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Equipped with a Cat C13 ACERT 214kW engine, the 25tonne 972H has a load sensing hydraulic system that automatically adjusts to operating conditions to only provide the hydraulic flow required by the implement for improved fuel efficiency. Thanks to its M3PC Priority Proportional Pressure Compensation Valve, implement control is said by Caterpillar to be improved over the previous system. According to Caterpillar, 972H operators notice enhanced ease of operation, more rimpull into the pile and a 20% increase in lift force.
The 972H wheeled loader’s electronic planetary powershift transmission with automatic shift capability is designed and built by Caterpillar. The very responsive, full-power speed and directional changes are said to provide excellent cycle times and productivity.
Other key benefits are said to be its components and technology, ensuring proven reliability; electronic systems that monitor vital machine components; outstanding uptime from what Caterpillar describe as ‘the best dealer support network in the industry’; and claimed unmatched genuine Cat parts availability.
