To create more value for customers, Komatsu and Cummins have partnered to deliver a new, integrated remote equipment monitoring solution designed to reduce unplanned stoppages, accelerate maintenance execution, and extend component life and maintenance intervals.
“Unplanned downtime from equipment and engine maintenance at mines can be very costly,” Komatsu wrote in a statement.
By sharing equipment health and performance data over common infrastructure, and collaborating on health analytics, both companies can access the same secure data and develop joint analytics and insights, the statement noted.
Komatsu said the data is collected on a single device and all actions are managed in a shared case management system, allowing experts from both teams to work remotely with a customer’s maintenance staff.
According to the company, integrating machine OEM support from Komatsu with expert OEM engine insight from Cummins allows both to proactively monitor asset health and optimize maintenance management, designed to help mining customers, avoid unplanned maintenance,
predict maintenance needs, decrease production costs and downtime from maintenance, and
increase asset utilisation.
Improved maintenance time and reduced costs
In the past, equipment and engine data collection and generation involved multiple data logging devices, each with its own individual remote data connection.
Customers typically had separate devices which created separate data silos for subsystems on a single haul truck.
With multiple data flows, mines have less control over where the data goes and who has access, whereas a single piece of hardware can simplify data flow and may also enhance cybersecurity.
By removing the need for duplicative communication infrastructure and multiple points of connection, the Cummins and Komatsu solution can offer new insights to help mining managers make better decisions faster.
Less hardware also reduces maintenance time and machine downtime because there is less hardware to install, and there are fewer components to maintain.