Smart Construction and Smart Quarry Demo Days introduces customers to suite of Komatsu-backed solutions
Komatsu customers from around the United States and Canada learned about Komatsu’s suite of Smart Construction solutions — including its newest addition, Smart Quarry — and intelligent Machine Control (iMC) at Komatsu’s Smart Construction and Smart Quarry Demo Days. The four-day event took place at Komatsu’s Training Center in Cartersville, Ga.
“Customers rotated between seven Smart Construction, Smart Quarry and iMC stations,” explained Komatsu Senior Product Manager Brandon Rakers. “In the morning, they spent 15 to 20 minutes learning about each solution from a product specialist. After a catered lunch break, they had the opportunity to operate several of our iMC and legacy retrofit machines as well as talk with specialists to dive deeper into solutions they found beneficial to their business.”
The Smart Construction stations included information about: Quarry, Dashboard, Design, Drone, Field, Fleet, Office, Remote, Retrofit, and iMC.
“We’ve found that customers are looking for solutions but don’t allot time to get in depth with them,” noted Rakers. “This event allowed them to dedicate that time toward hands-on learning about each solution and how they’re all connected. Ultimately, a digital job site is the way of the future, and we want our customers to understand how these solutions can increase productivity and supplement the machines and processes they already have in place.”
Smart Construction interconnectivity
Each Smart Construction solution helps improve job site efficiency. When several are used together, the solutions communicate to maximize your productivity. For example, Smart Construction Fleet, Field and Office are an ideal group.
“Smart Construction Field is a mobile app meant to tie your production and costs to your daily work, so there’s never any worry about what’s getting done on a day-to-day basis,” explained Komatsu Smart Construction Solutions Manager Christine Watters. “Our web-based platform, Smart Construction Office, will consolidate the information from Field and Fleet into reports, which you can then use to print out daily reports across your entire project portfolio. That gives you a full visual on what Smart Construction is doing for you, and most importantly, how efficiently your job sites are operating.”
While Smart Construction Fleet is geared toward the construction industry, Smart Quarry provides fleet monitoring solutions for mining operations.
“We previewed our Smart Quarry solution, which lets machines communicate with each other, share production information, and track the fleet,” said Komatsu’s Bruce Boebel, Director of Product and Services for Wheeled Products in North America. “This allows you to optimize fleet operation in a quarry by monitoring fuel consumption, machine data, cycle times, idle time and other data points. It’s actionable data you can use to increase operator efficiency.”
If you’re outsourcing 3D modeling services, Smart Construction Design is Komatsu’s 3D data generation service, which provides your company with accurate models to ensure your team can focus on core business operations.
Through Smart Construction Dashboard, you can combine 3D data with aerial mapping captured through Smart Construction Drone technology and data from iMC and retrofit machines to confirm quantities and visualize progress. When job site plans change, remotely upload files from your office to an iMC machine or log into a machine to view and interact with your operator’s screen through Smart Construction Remote.
Machine capabilities
On the equipment side of the event, Komatsu exhibited the new PC490LCi-11 iMC 2.0 excavator, a PC210LCi-11 iMC excavator equipped with automatic bucket angle technology, additional iMC dozers and excavators, and legacy excavators retrofit with indicate-only GPS systems.
“The PC490LCi-11 excavator is our largest excavator that features iMC 2.0,” said Komatsu Product Manager Nathaniel Waldschmidt. “It blends mass excavation and precision grading capabilities. This machine can tackle various ditching, trenchwork, and other underground applications without over- or under-digging.”
Waldschmidt continued, “We outfitted our PC210LCi-11 excavator with a bucket and coupler to demonstrate our auto bucket angle technology. All of our iMC 2.0 machines can use the technology. It automatically holds the bucket angle for an operator through an entire pass for precision cutting along slopes and trenches.”
The retrofit technology displayed how legacy excavators can help increase operators’ efficiency with stronger digital capabilities.
“Retrofit brings everything to light,” said Rakers. “It’s a solution for our customers using legacy excavators, tight tail swing excavators and our larger excavators that don’t have iMC capabilities. From both the retrofit and iMC machines, you can generate as-built data to feed back into Smart Construction Dashboard. That feeds into our goal behind Smart Construction: creating a digitally connected community. Eventually, we want to digitize the entire job site to improve your process from first cut through final pass.”
