How producers are leveraging tech to their benefit (Part 2)

The following discussion, which was edited for brevity and clarity, took place during a panel discussion about technology advancements in the aggregate industry at the South Carolina Aggregates Association’s (SCAA) Workshop & Exhibition. The panel involved two equipment manufacturers (Caterpillar’s Joey Pickett and Xylem’s Ken Albaugh) and two equipment dealers (K&R Group’s Vikki Bartlett and Industrial Supply Solutions’ Jeromy Davis). P&Q managing editor Jack Kopanski moderated the discussion. Read Part 1 of the SCAA discussion here.

Jack Kopanski (Pit & Quarry): How is technology being used to enhance safety?

Vikki Bartlett (K&R Group): That’s a double-edged sword. We have 360-degree camera systems and broadband sound backup alarms. The backup alarm proactively alerts somebody outside of the vehicle. With the 360-degree or even standard backup cameras, the operator needs to be looking at the camera monitor. But aren’t they supposed to be operating this equipment? One of the things we found that is more proactive and helpful, so the operators continue to do their job and pay attention to what they have to do: We have a sensor. If something comes into the danger zone, the vehicle will proactively alert the operator to look at their camera system and pay more attention because something is there. When does safety become a safety issue itself?

Jeromy Davis (Industrial Supply Solutions): It is [about] eliminating or reducing the opportunity for people to get injured, because they’re not having to go up the conveyor to check temperatures; they’re not having to go out on the pressure platform and check temperatures; they’re not having to go lubricate a bearing while it’s running. It’s just reducing the number of touches, which reduces the opportunity time.

Ken Albaugh (Xylem): It’s the same thing for us. The big example I always give people is: It’s Saturday morning when you’re not running, it starts raining, and you need to turn your pit pump on. Now, you can do it from your phone, you can see that it’s running, you can see it’s pumping properly, see it’s got fuel [and] all those things to get through the weekend. You don’t have to get somebody to go in and make sure everything’s okay.

Joey Pickett (Caterpillar): One of the things I’ve spent a lot of time on this year is post-accident inspections. Using telematics or connectivity, when we did that deep dive with the customer going back in and seeing transmission abuse warnings, engine over speeds, machine over speeds – it was habitual. Looking at it from a full agnostic safety perspective, if we were doing the right thing and got in front of that young, inexperienced operator and explained to him what will happen if you take 150 tons and try to go 47 mph with it on a on a wet haul road. … The backup sensors, the cameras that all the OEMs have on their machines are great. But using telematics, the productivity tools and really starting to look at that because, up until now, we really had no way to grade our operators. Now, we start looking at what were your efficiencies? What are your cycle times? Are you being safe? We can see that they are. We can see how they’re operating that machine down. I hate going into a situation where we’ve got an overturned 777 and the operator got seriously hurt.

Jack Kopanski (Pit & Quarry): What advancements or developments in safety technology might be on the horizon?

Vikki Bartlett (K&R Group): We work with manufacturers that back their product, but the product is only as good as the people who are using it. People get complacent. You hear beepers all day long, so when you hear a beeping back alarm, you’re not paying attention to it because you hear it all day long and you can’t really tell where it’s coming from. The main thing is to keep people educated and keep paying attention in the forefront. It’s silly things like a loose piece of clothing. Pay attention to where that loose piece of clothing is. Is it near a moving conveyor part or something of that nature? I think a lot of it has more to do with education than the product itself.

Jeromy Davis (Industrial Supply Solutions): For the equipment, [it’s] work monitoring. Just eliminating the risk is really the only thing for safety that it can do. The manufacturers can design better guards and things like that, but they still must be purposeful from the plan and the personnel who are doing the job. It’s not a monitoring thing at that point. It’s a mindset and a culture, which I think all producers do very well. [It’s] a culture of safety and being purposeful.

Ken Albaugh (Xylem): It starts with the people and the culture in the organization. As the equipment gets smarter and smarter – just like our cars can brake on their own now – I think there’s technology that is going to surface. We’re constantly looking at things with catastrophic failures on deadheading pumps, over speeding engines and shutting engines down before there is a catastrophic failure. Equipment is going to get smarter, but it’s back to the people using the data and the people with their hands on the controls.

Editor’s note: Read Part 1 of the panel discussion here.