Volvo Construction Equipment and dealer SMT Ghana have been piloting the Volvo ActiveCare service in Africa to deliver new levels of uptime and productivity
Volvo ActiveCare is a 24/7 remote machine monitoring and fleet utilisation reporting service that takes the burden of monitoring CareTrack telematics data off the customer.
Volvo keeps a constant eye on machine utilisation, performance, and health to provide remote diagnosis and suggest actions for improvement.
This enables the dealer to catch potential issues before they turn into serious and expensive problems, while boosting uptime, productivity, and profitability overall.
No unscheduled stops
In mines where machines operate almost 24 hours a day, uptime is key to productivity and profitability. While SMT Ghana’s on-site technicians perform checks every morning for service contract customers, a lot can happen after this time.
“It is costly to the customer to stop machines to investigate every time an alarm or error code pops up. With remote monitoring and diagnosis, we can prioritise whether immediate intervention is required of if we can wait until the next scheduled downtime,” explained Leonardo Aguiar, technical director at SMT Ghana.
The dealer can also anticipate any other problems so technicians can be ready with the right tools and parts at the next service.
Serious issues averted
SMT Ghana noticed, for example, that a service contract customer was experiencing many air pressure filter alarms. The on-site technicians investigated and found that the filters were getting clogged quickly.
To remedy the situation, SMT Ghana added extra oil bath filters and protective housing as well as optimising the process to exchange the entire system in a pit stop, so the machines did not have to wait while their filters were cleaned.
“Issues like this are not critical, but if left untreated can cause unplanned downtime or failures on the engine or machine,” Aguiar commented.
Greater site efficiency
Through analysing CareTrack data SMT Ghana has also supported customers to reorganise the number and capacity of machines on site and the routes they take to reduce idling time and fuel consumption for greater productivity and lower costs.
“In a nutshell, ActiveCare makes life easier for the customer – and for us as a dealer to help them – and gives the customer peace of mind that they are getting the most out of their machines,” Aguiar concluded.
Contact your local Volvo dealer to learn more about CareTrack or ActiveCare.
