A typical mine operates 24 hours a day for years to several decades. As such mining dump trucks work for around 600 hours a month, the same time the average commuter drives in 2 months. This means every second counts in mining. Any reduction in downtime or improvement in fuel consumption extends the productivity and profitability of mining operations. Kuchera has produced a solution to offer predictive downtime and driver efficiency insights which deliver recommendations to mining operations in order to maintain the highest possible levels of productivity.
The problem of data, timeliness
Mining is an orchestrated dance of extraction, collection, transportation, and dumping. It is a 24-hour production line which personifies the idea of time being money. Methods like open-cast mining can easily employ conveyor belts from the point of extraction to the ore’s destination. However, the deeper we go the less practical such a method is and at this point, dump trucks start making more sense.
There exists a great need to keep mining operations tight. Elimination of idle time for vehicles, consistent optimal driving habits, and continuous assessment of this metric to provide real-time reports that can be implemented immediately. This is the problem that saw the birth of Kuchera.
Real-time feedback on one dashboard even for mixed fleets
Kuchera, a Shona name meaning To Extract, is a product aimed at improving the efficiency of mining operations between extraction and dumping. A mining setup where the dump trucks move in laps is an ideal one for Kuchera’s solution. It can monitor aspects of the round trip including the quality of driving and the loading and offloading process. This is to ensure that the trucks are not loaded below capacity which unnecessarily increases the number of trips or is overloaded which will reduce the service intervals and lifespan of the trucks.
To achieve this, Kuchera makes use of onboard computers of these vehicles as well as additional sensors to gather the relevant data. Where Kuchera is getting an edge is with operations that use a mixed fleet of trucks. Each truck OEM has its own system of collecting and presenting data however it is just raw data. And with a mixed fleet, the data reporting may not completely line up across different OEMs.
Kuchera will use their own hardware in any truck and ensure consistent reporting from all the trucks. This data is fed into a console with a program that extracts insights and produces recommendations based on those insights in real-time.
The future of Kuchera
Kuchera is planning on running a pilot project in Zimbabwe and South Africa to try and sell its solution to these markets. In 2024 they also plan to adapt their technology into construction. Their solution is geared toward material hauling which is relevant as well in other industries like construction.
