Entering Our Choices into FPC ©2009 Dr B C Paul Note – This slide series contains screen shots of the computer program FPC developed by Caterpillar Equipment Company

Start with our Semi- Initialized Project Tab Screen

Click on the Fleet Input Tab

We Enter a Name and Description for Each Fleet

Make Our Entry for the First Fleet

Click on Add Hauler to Bring Up the Hauler Screen

We Pick Cat Standard Machines and Trucks Caterpillar has all the Data on their own Machines and P+H Shovels in the program (If you want something Else you have to enter Your own data)

Up Comes a List of Machines Scroll down and click on The 775

When Selected the Truck Turns Red Now click OK

The Basic Truck Info Appears Now Click on Select Loader

Pick Cat Standard Machines and Hydraulic Excavator

Scroll Down and Select the 5230 ME Note that the program Considers both the Current B model and The earlier 5230 model (good for used Equipment Consideration) Also note that FS means The machine has a Front shovel

The Fleet is In We do need a Couple details -Availability and -Number of units

Availability l In a perfect world machinery never breaks down – then there is our world New equipment with maintenance contracts can hit 90 to 95% Mid age more typical equipment is about 80% Old equipment held together with bailing wire is about 60-75% l I’m going to go with 80%

Enter My Info

The Default Number of Units is 1 l Some how I don’t think I can move 70,000,000 tons of material with one Cat 775 l Lets do an estimate for a realistic number of units to guess The Cat program will help us refine it.

First Question – How Much Can I get out of one truck in a year? l Cat 775 is Volume limited with 54.3 cubic yards at 2107 lbs/cubic yard 57.2 tons of rock (a short ton is 2000 lbs) l A trip is 34,000 ft round Distance (ft)/ (MPH*88) = time in minutes Guess a 15 mph average 34,000/(15*88) = minutes About 2 trips per hour

My Continued Estimate l 2772 hours per year (calculated earlier – see slide set #1) l At 2 trips an hour that’s 5,544 trips l At 80% availability we will only get 80% of that or 4,435 trips l At 57.2 tons per trip that is 253,693 tons/year

Ongoing Estimation l About 250,000 tons per truck with 70,000,000 tons to move 280 trucks (Now I know why I wanted big ones)

Next Question – How Many Loaders to Go with that? l A Truck trip is about 30 minutes l If it takes about 3 minutes to load (common blind guess for load times) l One loader can handle 10 trucks so I need about 28 loaders

Enter the Information

A Note on Guessing l The Design process is not just solving a set of text book equations There are a lot of equations that must be true for a successful design but you have to have an idea of what you want to do before you can check it l Note the first thing we did was to take a look at what was wanted and then we used our knowledge of equipment to pick units that could work for the job

What We Did Next l We then used rough equations and down right guesses to try to get realistic equipment combinations. l Does the fact that we guessed mean it will work? Ya – and what planet did you come from? l No – we will usually find later equations not satisfied and we will use that information to come back and make changes till we converge to an answer.

More Comments on Design l Will everyone come up with the same design? No, but they should all have the ability to work l Will everyone make the same guesses as they go along No, and that will make some designs converge faster than others l Does it mean your dumb if you guess wrong? No, it means your dumb if you sit there and do nothing Design is a calculated and planned system of trial and error

That Was So Much Fun We Just Have to Do it for the Other Fleets Click on Add New Fleet

This is looking kind of familiar

When I’m Done Entering I Can Pull Up Any Fleet for Examination