Terex Construction has sold 10 TR100 rigid dump trucks to Stevin Rock, which operates the largest limestone quarry in the Middle East, in addition to a batch of ten trucks sold late last year.
The government-owned quarry in Ras Al Khaimah already has a fleet of 38 Terex TR100 rigid trucks, plus 20 of the previous 3311 and 33100 models.
The TR100 is the largest rigid dump truck in the five-model Terex line-up, with a heaped capacity of 57m³, and the 91 tonne (100 ton) payload truck is powered by a 783kW Cummins KTA38-C engine.
“We’ve got a big fleet of Terex trucks and that was a major factor in the decision to buy the new TR100s,” said technical and operations manager Simon Turner.
“The equipment was partly fleet expansion, along with an element of fleet renewal. We work 24/7, 365 days a year here and working hours on a machine can easily reach 7,000 hours per year.”
More than 250 individual pieces of machinery are working in the quarry, including a variety of wheel loaders (Caterpillar) and excavators (Komatsu).
Currently more than 120,000 tonnes of material is being excavated each day. Up to 70% of the material is exported throughout the Middle East and to the Indian steel industry.
Turner took over running of the site last summer and has completely overhauled the working operation, with impressive results. The company has seen a 15% rise in efficiency and an even more impressive 30% rise in productivity, with hardly any additional machinery or personnel. Equally importantly, health and safety at the quarry has improved significantly.
“It is a continuous course of improvement. We’ve seen some big wins in terms of productivity, now the smaller things need to be assessed. This site is primarily about logistics, it’s a load and haul site. We have put the plan in place, now we need to prove it.”
The new Terex trucks are certainly playing a part in the improved efficiency and productivity that is being achieved. “We’ve done a lot of time cycle analysis to see where improvements can be made. We’re also looking at excessive truck idling and correct positioning for better efficiency. We look at everything from an efficiency point of view now,” he said.
“Having the new trucks has certainly helped in our understanding of maintenance of the new systems too.”
