There is a bucket load of money to be saved from Undercarriage Components that are changed out too early.
Many operators of heavy tracked machinery are hard pressed for time in their daily routines to consider the cost and lost savings from components being removed prior to reaching 100% worn. Understanding the true cost is a worthwhile exercise .
Take for instance a set of links where the cost of the chain is $50,000. On a particular repair the chain which is 90% worn is removed and replaced with a new chain (Cost $52,000) which is 0% worn.
The lost value associated with the old chain is the 10% of wear and hours still available, being $50,000 X 10% = $5,000.
The cost associated for the new chain to cover the period of time that the old chain should have been on the machine, but is now having to be covered by the new chain = $52,000 X 10% = $5,200
The total cost of changing the chain early is thus $10,200 or about 20%. Looking at 20% over time, after changing the chain 5 times, you will have unnecessarily spent the equivalent of an entire chain due to early replacement. This is a substantial amount for one machine, but across multiple machines you are looking at huge sums of money that could be saved through better chain monitoring and management.
Actual onsite scenarios are rarely that simple and straight forward though. Depending on the environment, some sites report that they never get 100% wear on their links as the seals fail first and become the limiting factor. On other sites they can actually manage the links through constant monitoring to get reduced wear rates, but then have to replace the chain when the links are less than 100% worn as the bushes and/or sprocket needs replacing.
Whatever your case is, there is one thing you can be sure of. You need to figure out and then achieve the most cost effective replacement schedule for your machines.
With so many variables in play, such as the way different components interact with and impact each other, the conditions you are working in and even the make of your parts, there is no simple one size fits all chart that you can consult. To find the best strategy to manage your fleet, you need to monitor your machines and see how they perform over time.
In short; to manage, you need to monitor, and to monitor you need to inspect.
You cannot manage the cost of your components if you don’t know the condition!
TrackTreads provides you with the tools to inspect, monitor and manage every tracked machine in your fleet. From in the field inspection tools to advanced historical machine analytics, TrackTreads simplifies the collection of the data, the interpreting and reporting of inspection results and provides a full history of every component on every machine. This is the information you need to design undercarriage management strategies that save you money.
To get further information and arrange a free demontration simply fill in the form below.
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