Everything You Need To Know About Mining Fleet Management Systems

Mining fleet management systems are becoming an increasingly important part of mining businesses. They can help you manage your mining operations more efficiently and effectively, resulting in increased profits.

In this blog post, we will discuss what mining fleet management systems are, how they can help your business, and how to choose the right system for your needs. We will also look at the cost of mining fleet management systems and their maintenance and support.

Let’s dive straight into it.

What Is A Mining Fleet Management System?

A Fleet Management System (FMS) for a mine site is a combination of specialised software that connects to your vehicles and site areas. The hardware involved typically includes a tablet with GPS, 4G and a wireless radio network.

Advanced FMS software systems such as Haultrax Digital use AI algorithms to help supervisors make decisions and an intuitive dashboard that organises data together.

FMS systems can be used to track truck locations, payload, refuelling times, operator activity and more. It can also use geofencing to track how mines grow and change over time.

How Can An FMS Help Your Mining Operation?

Every mine will have some kind of system and processes to track productivity — some better than others. For surface mines, our FMS system is a game-changer.

Legacy systems range from pen and paper to basic data collection with a confusing feed to track activities. FleetOps and FleetControl are cutting-edge software tools that let supervisors ditch the clipboard and access data insights from their tablet, smartphone or computer.

Here’s a list of ways a modern FMS can help:

• Manage production activity for dispatching, time and materials.
• Track payload and cycle times.
• Optimise routes to loading and dumping areas.
• Track refuelling times.
• Overview of vehicle statuses and breakdowns.
• Provides actionable insights.
• Makes reporting much easier with automatic and accurate activity tracking.
• Calculate the cost-to-benefit ratio of procedures.
• Real-time data and analytics for your mine’s performance e.g. 6% increase in cycle time.
• SaaS-based making support and maintenance easier.

An FMS can help you identify holds up such as poor road conditions, a buildup of trucks at a single digger or predicting wet weather and suggest solutions. You can use this data to send a grader to fix the road or reroute a truck to another digger.

How To Choose The Right System For Your Mine

There are two key factors for choosing the right mining FMS system: compatibility and ease of onboarding.

Major manufacturers such as Caterpillar and Komatsu will force mining supervisors to use their own proprietary software with their machinery. Often these systems are difficult to learn, lack useable features and are harder to maintain as their support teams are based overseas.

At Haultrax, our philosophy is to integrate with as many data sources as possible. Our system is compatible with all payload management systems and focuses on 30-40 key functions that work seamlessly. Your data is secure and owned by you, so there are no additional charges if you decide to change systems.

Implementing a new FMS is often one of the biggest fears for time-poor mining managers. To make the transition as smooth as possible, Haultrax Consulting’s side can help. We have over 10 years of experience as mining consultants and have helped many mining operations handle change.

We can onboard your team, set up your system and provide support from an Australian-based team.

What Is The Cost Of A Mining FMS?

The cost of a mining Fleet Management System (FMS) depends on the size and complexity of the operation. Large-scale mining operations require comprehensive systems that can track and manage hundreds or even thousands of vehicles. These systems are typically supplied by major manufacturers such as Cat Minestar and Modular Mining, and they can cost more than $1+ million to deploy. Annual license fees for these systems can also be very expensive, typically in the range of $880,000 per year.

By contrast, Haultrax is a much less expensive option for small to medium-size mines. Haultrax is a leading provider of FleetOps, a cloud-based FMS that is much more affordable than the systems offered by the major manufacturers. The initial deployment cost for FleetOps is around $300,000, and annual license fees are only $150,000 – a fraction of the cost of other systems. These savings can be reinvested in other areas of the mine, such as safety or training.

Is There Maintenance and Support For An Mining FMS?

What happens when your FMS has a problem? Due to the remote nature of mines, maintenance and support can often be a major challenge.

Fortunately, Haultrax uses a SaaS system with minimal hardware so often issues can be addressed remotely. We have a team of experienced technicians that can help troubleshoot issues and as an Australian-based firm, we’re never far away.

When it comes to training and onboarding, our experience as a consultant helps us stand out from the crowd. We can help your mining operation transition to modern technologies and manage the fallback from system changes. Our diverse team have a deep understanding of the mining operations and technology and can offer advice on how to best utilise the Haultrax mining fleet management system in your business.

Learn More About Mining Fleet Management Systems

As you can see, mining fleet management systems play an important role in modern mining operations.

They can help you manage your mining operations more efficiently and effectively, resulting in increased profits as well as help supervisors focus on more important areas of the operation.

If you’re looking to upgrade your system or simply learn more about mining FMS, we’d be delighted to assist.

Book a demonstration today to see our software in action and learn more about how we can help streamline your mining operations.