Insight – Facts Always Override Opinions

There was a time when a piece of lifting equipment was acquired and when a replacement or additional item was required a review would be taken of the original equipment’s performance. This was largely based on memory or recollection and was hugely subjective with recent memory generally being the pre-eminent factor. Ultimately, what was provided was an opinion.

With the evolution of telematics, facts can replace opinions and nowhere is this most evident than on the Mantsinen Insight system that records every driver’s activity, to create the most complete picture of machine use. How high, how far, what speed, throughput, time, fuel consumption, engine idling and machinery uptime, are just a selection of the more popular data that customers require visibility, but it is the analytics of this data that reveals the most interesting reading.

As Chris Barnes of Coopers suggests “Fuel consumption is highly emotive given the corporate demand to reduce emissions and to reduce energy costs but this can be readily negated with high idling time. A high idling percentage artificially reduces fuel consumption, so fuel use has to be viewed in conjunction with idling percentage or else the number is totally meaningless. Moreover, what is the machine doing when it is not idling – this is more important than when it is idling away.” Chris continues “We know the time that is used, we know the idling percentage, we can see the cycles and tonnage throughput, so the system calculates both litres per hour and tonnes per hour. By extension therefore we have visibility of tonnes moved per litre of fuel. This is the most complete measurement of all”.

Tonnes per litre

But what constitutes a good and a poor ‘tonnes per litre of fuel’? What is the goal? Chris Barnes states “We are looking at anything over 10-12 tonnes per litre to be a strong performance, but it is dependent upon product density. Grain for example needs more cycles than heavier density products. In one application we are achieving over 16 tonne per litre of fuel, but that machine had only 15% idling and was working just under 70 cycles per hour, which suggests the load was not wholly dependent on landside operations.

The effect of landside bottlenecks

Unquestionably, the Mantsinen cranes are working at a faster rate than landside operations’ ability to remove product from the quay and this is shown in the cycle times. Chris Barnes comments “ The machines cycle time are impressive and with no landside restrictions, the machines can work in excess of 100 cycles per hour on a grabbing operation but we are noticing cycles are being restricted with the cranes waiting. This is sometimes reducing crane operational capacity to typically 50-60% but on some occasions down to 35% efficiency. This reduces throughput and increases idling – both of these factors individually negatively impact the ‘tonnes per litre’ performance”.

Managing behaviour

Two machines, two operators, same site, same product, same applications but one machine has three-times the tonnes per litre rating! Chris Barnes explains “This is simply down to operator behaviour and is testament to the logic that the most aggressive operators are not the most productive. The Insight system shows the engine speed is cranked up entirely on one and yet cycles per hour and thus tonnes per hour have not risen proportionally. On the contrary, they were lower.” On the other machine, you can see each lift is more productive, lower engine speed there are fewer alarms and demonstrates how much a factor the operator is in the overall productivity equation.  Chris suggests “This is now only visible through the insight system – it maybe visible to the eye over time but not measurable”.

Reporting

Machine reporting can be obtained in two ways – either automatically with timed reports being sent from the machine ECU, daily, weekly or monthly or the user can access the web-portal system in real time and create own reports selecting the date range applicable. This same web-portal can assist with remote diagnostics, alarms and fault codes too.

The Mantsinen insight is available on all Mantsinen equipment irrespective of size or power source. The Mantsinen range extends from the 60 to the world’s largest hydraulic crane, the massive 300. Mantsinen Insight – where facts will always override opinions.

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