Using Caterpillar's Fleet Production Cost Program FPC

Using Caterpillar’s Fleet Production Cost Program - FPC ©Mar. 2008 Dr. B. C. Paul Note – This presentation covers the use of software proprietary to Caterpillar Equipment Company and includes screen shots from the program FPC by Caterpillar Equipment Company.

What is FPC • FPC is a program by Caterpillar used to calculate earth moving cycle times, fleet sizes and costs. • In this case Trucks and Loaders are of Interest – We will select a fleet of trucks and loaders to check – A Haul Road Profile

• It will tell us the amount of time needed to move a tonnage and the cost we will incur.

What Do We Want From This • For Our Fleet we want to know – What is the cycle time for our truck trips to • The Mill • The Dump • The Pad Leach Area

– How Well Balanced is Our Number of Trucks and Loaders – Do we have enough trucks and loaders to move our quota of overburden, ore, and leach material. – When we get this information we will use it for capacity limits in programs like MSVALP and Strategic Planner – (Interesting note – MineSight is adding a Haulage Program inside MineSight)

FPC Can Be Started From A Desk Top Icon or From Selecting All Programs

The Availability of Help After an inspiring Picture of trucks This starting screen Comes up. You can click on help And pick help topics From the pop down Menu.

The Help Topics Screen Contents Tab Gives You a Whole Users Manual Of course other tabs Give you other topic Look up options.

Lets Begin To Start a project click On File and pull down The menu Pick New off the Menu

The Project Screen Appears I put in a project title And explanation (this is for my Reference and Organization) I identify what it was Prepared for, by Whom, and when I select my basic Units of measurement

I Input Project Specific Plans I input my cost of Diesel fuel (yours may vary) I also put what percent Of the scheduled Time the trucks and Loaders actually work (operators get Breaks or may take Time to get to their Equipment) On 50 minutes per Hour is a broad Industrial average And corresponds to About 87%

More Parameters I need to specify the time Period I will work with (the year is most common) I need to estimate the Number of hours I will Schedule. This will Depend on how many Days per week you will Work and how many Shifts. (In this case I assumed 5 days per week with Ten holidays – 250 days And then 24 hours a day)

Operator efficiency measures how much of the machines theoretical Acceleration and performance the operator will actually achieve. (the Default is that drivers do better on longer hauls and more poorly on

Bunching is the tendency Of trucks to not space Themselves out evenly Causing multiple trucks To arrive to be loaded at The same time (Cat has Done extensive work on

Next We Input Our Equipment Fleets Put in a name and Explanation for your Fleet You may have multiple Fleets – for example You can have separate Fleets for ore and Waste If you need to do Several fleets you can Add the additional Fleets by pushing the Add New Fleet button To start entering the Next fleet.

Start By Identifying the Trucks in This Fleet Click Add Hauler The Select Hauler Screen comes up.

Cat Equipment Is Preprogrammed in (Obviously) You can program in Other equipment but to Use the Cat equipment Click the Cat Standard Machines Radio Button And Identify that we are Working on Trucks A list of Cat trucks Appears – scroll to What you want to work With.

When you find the One you are using Click on it Your selection turns red Then click Ok

The Basic Info for Your Truck Comes Up Enter the number of These trucks you Have.

For some inputs you Have a menu or Sub-Screen of choices Clicking on the little Doted boxes will Activate those options (for example Ton Mile Per Hour Limits Or ownership and Operating costs)

The Cat Handbook is a Useful Supplement I clicked on the dot Box by Ton Miles Per Hour The box came up Showing me the Typical weight Distribution for my Truck. I still need to know What limits to Impose This is where the Cat Handbook comes in Handy because it has Typical Ton Mile Per hour ratings for Tires – you may also Get such info from Tire manufactures

I Can Also Bring Up Costs (In fact I better if I want a cost estimate) It starts with ownership Costs I start out working with Vehicle hours and life I enter my scheduled Vehicle hours per year And what I expect for The vehicles availability Now I get operating Hours per year – Given I know typical Engine hours in a Vehicle life I can now Estimate the years I Will have the truck.

I Enter the Truck Cost Enter the complete Cost for the truck Delivered erected and Ready to work. (Your values may differ) Because tires are An operating cost and We don’t want to double Account we subtract Out the tire price We also identify any Salvage value the truck May have. The program will then Get the hourly Capital Cost of the truck.

I Also Enter the Interest, Insurance, and Property Tax Cost One of the problems With interest is that The amount varies By year as the loan Is paid off (assuming There ever was a Loan in the first Place). The Cat Program Requires a constant amount

Ideas on Interest • Option #1 – The money is all investor equity – You can put in a 0 but now you will have to deal with investor return in a separate cash flow spreadsheet

• Option #2 – The loan is simple interest. – Simple interest charges a constant amount each year so the number is easy to get (but simple interest loans are rare)

• Option #3 – Go to the Next Slide – This is going to take a while.

Interest From a Compound Interest Loan • Use A/P at your compound interest rate to get your payment amount (probably annually) – Calculate out the principle and interest amount each year and make a cash flow showing only the interest

• Your Payment Life and Truck Life May be Different • Get the NPV of your interest payment cash flow at your investor required rate of return – This interest rate is probably different than the interest rate you are paying the bank

• Now Get the Total Life Cycle Cost of That Interest NPV over the total service life of the truck – Enter this number as the amount of interest

• (If you are confused see you instructor for a review of Engineering Economics principles)

Input Your Annual Truck Costs for Insurance and Property Tax As a rule of thumb Each number is about 4 to 5% of the average Annual investment for A truck.

Wait A Minute – What is Average Annual Investment? • Trucks loose value as they age and you are usually taxed or insure only the value of the truck (not its new value) • The average value of a truck at the start of the year is – (N+1)/(2*N)*New Value of Truck • Where N is the years life of the truck

• When you get this number multiply by around 4 or 5% to get average insurance or tax costs – If you know actual tax or insurance costs these numbers are obviously better than rule of thumb estimates – Note also this average annual investment rule does not incorporate the time value of money into the average tax and insurance cost so it is a little off that way also.

Next We Go For the Operating Costs

Enter the Cost of your Operator per hour with The cost of benefits. (You may be able to Get wage rates from Western Mine Cost Service or contracts or Labor unions in your Area) Remember to add the Cost of vacation, Social Security, Medicare Unemployment, Workmans Comp, Vacations, and health Or other benefits you Pay – these things – Called burden typically Add 40 to 65% more to The wage.

You Need Fuel, Lube, Tires, and Repair Reserve Costs Per Hour Note with lubricants you Can either enter an Over-all cost Or you can break it down By component.

Where Do I Get Stuff Like Fuel or Repair or Lubricant Cost • The Cat Handbook has a table of truck fuel consumption per hour – If you know how many gallons per hour of fuel is burned and the price of your diesel you know the cost per hour for fuel

• The Cat Handbook has a table of lubricant costs – (Terex has a rule of thumb that lubrication expenses – including labor – are about 1/4th to 1/3rd of fuel cost)

• The Cat Handbook has a bar chart showing approximate hourly maintenance and repair costs for their trucks – Kamatsu has similar tables for their trucks.

We Check Our Truck Cost Fields and Prepare to Do Our Loaders To load the trucks I click On the Select Loader Button.

Note I have set 85% availability (your numbers may differ)

It is Similar to What We Had for Trucks I get a separate window I pick standard machines I pick power shovel (Interesting Cat does Not make power Shovels but it has Some of the big P+H Models) I click on my shovel And it turns red Next I will click OK

I Set My Loader Info and Cost as Before

The Rimpull Graph Tab Shows a PreEntered Rimpull Curve for Cat Trucks I bet you can guess What is under the Retarder graph tab.

The is where I could enter another trucks rimpull curve if I needed to.

I Next Prepare to Enter My Haul Road Profile I enter the name Of the haul route An explanation of The route And whether a Truck can pass A slower truck (the Cat program Uses a bunching Probability)

One may have More than one Course such as A course to the mill, A course to the Leach pads, or a Course to the dumps. After entering a Course you can Add another.

I Need Loose and Bank Densities of Materials I can click the Select materials Tab and a list pops Up for me to pick From I can pick as before – Click it turns red And then Ok (The list in FPC is Much less extensive Than in the Cat Handbook so you May want to just Manually enter the Properties) You also need to Enter the tonnage of Material to move per Time period (my example is waste Per year)

If I Have Trouble With a Field I Can Get Help Click on the Question icon Then drag a Question down to The field or Button in question And click A help field comes Up.

Enter Your Haul Road Segment By Segment You need length (of the segment) Rolling Resistance % Grade And you have a Chance to enter An explanation Of that segment The default button Tells me this is The loaded haul Segment.

Your Return Trip May Or May Not be a Reverse of the Forward Haul If the return trip is Just a reverse of the Haul you can Click the mirror Haul road button It automatically Sets the return haul If not you click the Return haul button And then enter The return haul One segment at A time.

Now It Is Time to Select Which Truck Fleet Will Haul Over Which Route Choose the select Tab All possible Combinations come Up and you check Off what you want To run this time (in this example Case with just one Set the choice is not Much of a challenge)

Next Go To the Production Cost Tab The select subtab Is up first and Shows in red the Selection you are Running.

Go to The Cycle Times Sub-Tab It has already Estimated a bunch Of cycle time Elements (you can’t change Brown fields) It does not know Exactly how your Dump point is Set up so you must Enter the dump time (Note that until you Do this the program Will claim 0 Production all over The place)

You Need to Do Some Loader Balancing It Starts out telling you Some fractional Number of passes To perfectly fill the Truck. Most loader Operators will use A fractional pass to Complete the fill. You need to manually Adjust to an Integer number of Passes.

If You Increase the Number of Passes to Get an Integer Your Truck will be Overloaded The program assumes What ever fill factor You selected Earlier. Since you don’t want To overload a truck More than 5% you Will want to adjust Down to a lower fill Factor for the average Fill so as not to Overload the truck.

Eventually You Will Balance Your Loader Fill Check the times for Your truck and loader Configuration. The program assumes Single truck loading So there is a truck Change out time (a very impressive Speed for one at that)

You get your first glimpse of your Cycle time.

If you are using a Loading truck Configuration that Spots a truck while Another is loaded the Loader may not have The idol change out Time. The loader may also Be filling the dipper While a truck changes

Now We Get Some Results Look Under the Fleet Production Sub-Tab

It tells how many Fleet hours or Part of a year that Will be required to Move the target Amount of material It also says how Much material could Be moved if the whole Fleet where used for The scheduled time In a year (This will give you a Good idea of whether Your fleet is sized to The task)

You Can Check Your Haul and Return Times by Road Segment

Even Though I Did Not Enter a Ton Mile Per Hour Limit I Check My TMPH demand on the tires to see if I might have trouble

I Can Get My Cost Per Ton for Moving My Material

It Shows You The Impact of Changing the Number of Trucks for One Loader This will help me Decide whether I want to try a Different fleet size For this job.

It Gives Me Results in Terms of Fuel Consumption