Equipment Worldâs Bryan Furnace has been an operator in the construction industry for 14 years. But after an afternoon testing out Komatsuâs new wave of dozers with intelligent Machine Control 2.0, he was blown away by their advanced technology.
âRunning that dozer was the first time in my career that machine control has truly left me speechless,â Furnace said during an interview with Jason Anetsberger, Director of Customer Solutions for Komatsu.
Komatsuâs intelligent 2.0 technology offers cutting-edge automation and machine control that allows for dozers to map terrain on their own and intelligently spread material from an existing surface to the target design elevation. Connected to Komatsuâs suite of Smart Construction job site solutions, the machines further share 3D design data visualization and metrics to a cloud-based dashboard. These improvements can help make contractors far more efficient and productive on the jobsite, according to Anetsberger.
âWith these technologies, not only are you helping your operators be more productive, but that [machine] asset itself becomes more productive,â Anetsberger said. âSo you can grow your business without having to acquire another asset or search hard for another operator in a tight labor market. You can do more with the crew you have.â
To learn more about how Komatsuâs intelligent Machine Control and Smart Construction solutions complement each other and can help your crew become more productive, listen to Furnaceâs full interview with Anetsberger here.
And if you want to check out the same equipment that left Furnace amazed, visit Komatsuâs booth at this yearâs ConExpo-Con/Agg in Las Vegas, Nevada. You can find Komatsu at Booth W42044 in the West Hall, or register for their March 17 educational session, âDigital Transformation of the Job Site,â in West Hall 206.
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Transcript
Bryan Furnace:
Hi, everybody. Welcome back to Equipment World. I'm Bryan, your host, and today, we're here to talk with Komatsu. Everyone's familiar with Komatsu. They're one of the industry's top players. But we're not here to talk equipment specifically with Komatsu today. We're here to talk about some of their technological advances that they're kind of having quietly behind the scenes. And the only reason I say behind the scenes is because when you think of Komatsu, you don't think necessarily first and foremost of machine control or some of the other technological advances that they've made that can help you on the job site, which is exactly what we're here to talk about today.
So we'll fire off with a soft, easy question. Tell us a bit about Komatsu intelligent machine control. You guys are known, in my mind, you've always been known as the dirt movers of the industry. But I don't know that you're the first ones I think of when I think of machine control, but you guys have got some really awesome stuff going on with machine control. Tell us a bit about that.
Jason:
Well, I hope to change your perspective going forward. But yeah, you went straight to a topic that's near and dear to my heart. Komatsu introduced an intelligent machine control product line back in 2013, and these days, about 10,000 or so of those machines working here in North America. Their line of dozers and excavators was integrated through the machine control technology, so high precision GPS or GNSS technology, and then a kind of advanced automation of the work equipment to really up the performance of operators, both experienced and lesser experienced alike, and make sure our contractors, our customers, can get the most out of those machines as possible.
Bryan Furnace:
I think you totally downplayed that, and I think that's in all honesty why Komatsu isn't in my mind the first one I think of when it comes to intelligent machine control. But I will say as a testament to your technology and your machines, here about two months ago, I was at your facility and I ran one of your new dozers with the new intelligent machine control. And for the first time, I was left speechless as the dozer did slot dozing, and all I had to do was sit there and make sure I was going in a straight line. The technology you guys have, I would actually argue is more advanced than some of your competitors.
Jason:
We would argue the same, yeah. So Komatsu has spent a lot of effort not just on the integration of the technology for the convenience sake of nothing on the blade, and from a robustness and durability and maintenance standpoint, but really doubled down on the automation. Customers, they're investing a lot of money in that technology, and so we want them to get the most reward or performance out of that machine and that technology. So kind of unique to us is that you can put that machine dozer, let's say, into automatics, whether you're 10 feet away, or one foot away, or one tenth of a foot from grade. And that machine knows the difference and can do, say, slot dozing, rough dozing, and can do finish grading. It can even intelligently spread material from an existing surface up to the target design elevation and pre-described lift increments all in automatics.
So really, a lot of technology there available for the operator to make him or her more productive, and actually have a more enjoyable time in the cab too, a lot less fighting the machine or having to take over when the autos maybe traditionally aren't capable, or other systems aren't capable of doing it, this machine can do it. It really frees that operator up to instead kind of think about what he or she's trying to construct on the job site, where the earth needs to go, and [inaudible 00:03:54] kind of think ahead and plan out the next pass.
Bryan Furnace:
And I will say when it comes to the machine control conversation, I think you totally hit the nail on the head, and I think that's where a lot of people on both sides of the conversation, both on the manufacture side, but also on the end user side, where a lot of people miss the mark is they get so caught up in the, we're trying to take over the job of the operator. And I don't think that's it at all. And where I've really settled is what you said exactly. It's freeing up more of your mental capacity as an operator so that you can focus on other aspects of becoming more productive on the job site. Clearly, we're also closing the skills gap for these newer generation coming in that don't quite have the skillset that the older generation did.
But for the older generation, who likes to sit back and cross their arms, "I don't need that stuff," I go exactly where you do, that think about the additional focus you can spend on safety, for one, because especially, you think about a pipe crew. I've got guys all over the place. And if now I'm not having to worry about pulling hyper-accurate grade and that's requiring 100% of my concentration, now I can be aware of the guy that's standing next to the trench box that I might bump, or some other component. I can worry about other ways of being more productive because now I can see the trucks that are coming in, and I may have to move my dozer out of the way because I'm not concentrating on keeping perfect grade the whole time. So I think you guys nailed it on the head with your mentality there.
Jason:
Yeah. And it's not even the same technology from when we introduced it in 2013, to where in our second generation, we call it intelligent machine control 2.0. But it's really evolved with the feedback from the field, from having those thousands of units out there across North America working on a variety of job sites day in and day out. So those dozers today, they track map. They learn the terrain, and so that they can then plan that next pass, now just how much material needs to be moved, but how to approach that pass, where to start cutting, how aggressively to cut, when that blade will be loaded up to its maximum capacity, and then being able to carry that through the rest of the pass because it knows the terrain, whether it's flat or whether it's undulating. The machine can then follow that knowledge that it gathered in the prior pass. So yeah, a lot of great things are coming, or have been learned I should say, from partnering with our customers.
The machines learn now how to tilt steer Right? We didn't have that originally back in 2013. Looking at how operators are running machines, all the hand movements that they're having to do, we've been able to introduce a tilt steering function, where the machine automatically tilts the blade to maintain straight travel when it is in a rough dozing mode. And then on the excavators, you got a great examples you brought up there, but the technology on the excavator, the last thing we want to do is slow down an awesome excavator operator. He's focused on production, generally loading out trucks. Right? That's how you make hay with an excavator, moving that material as fast as you can.
The automation, you don't have to change the way you work. You don't have to slow down. If you make a mistake and try to dig below grade, the automation will kick in, not stop you, just kick that boom up for you on your behalf. If you're trying to pull a surface, that automation's going to keep you from having a bunch of dips and dives in your trench floor. It's going to help you do that. But you keep moving that material and curling that bucket as you see fit. It's kind of like the operator's little helper because these days, we hear this all the time about the workforce shortages, how it's hard to find good operators, operators that show up.
With this, with these technologies, not only are you helping both experienced and lesser experienced operators maybe be more productive, but that asset itself becomes more productive. So as you grow your business, and maybe not having to acquire another asset, or have to go out and find, search hard for another operator in the tight labor market, you can do more with the crew that you have. You can sneak in an extra project or two before, at least here in Chicago, winter arrives by knocking at the door and shuts you down. So that's where a lot of customers are telling us they really do appreciate the technology. That's why they're making these investments because it helps their current workforce and helps them do more with the workforce they have and the assets they do have.
Bryan Furnace:
That was an honest statement. Running that dozer was the first time in my career machine control has truly left me speechless. And the hard pill to swallow was if I honestly sat back and looked at the situation, that dozer was going to be more efficient in the slot dozing application than I was going to be with my skillset as a seasoned operator because it knows exactly when it's going to experience track slippage. It knows, like you said, it's reading the terrain so that it can account for what's coming instead of thinking about the here and now. And as hard as that was for me to swallow, that's such a testament as to how far the technology has come, and it is awesome.
As an operator, I've been in the industry for about 14 years now, 13, somewhere in there, that was awesome. It really made my jaw drop. So that does segue me into, you're talking about the dozer having the ability to in real time read the terrain. From what I understand, you guys have another component, the smart construction dashboard and office, which is a management tool that we will get into. But you're telling me, if I understand this correctly, that information will automatically be passed through so that I have that information in the office, even though it's coming out of the dozer in real time. Can you kind of talk about how that works? And then we'll segue into the dashboard and office.
Jason:
Yeah, 100%. So in this day and age, so much of the technology or the devices we all have out there are connected to the cloud. Right? So it's the same thing with these dozers and excavators, the intelligent machine control product line. They are able to connect to the cloud. In this case, we port the as-build data as they move around that job site. So for example, as that dozer tracks over the job site, it is reporting elevations in real time, not from the blade, but from what it actually tracks over. So instead of having to dispatch someone out there weekly to walk the site with a rover, or have to go out there weekly or something and fly the drone, this machine is doing that day in and day out throughout the work it's performing dozing, and giving you that kind of survey for free, I'd say.
And then that data is going up into the cloud, and then the customer can access that through the smart construction dashboard module, which is kind of, if you think of it as a [inaudible] terrain or productivity viewer. So in that, they can load up the design data in the same target design data that the machines are running off of, a GPS rover. And then you can load up or visualize the as-built data, so whether that's coming in from a drone flight or those intelligent machines, when you have those kind of two surfaces, current versus target, or initial versus target, then you can really be empowered to do a lot of calculations.
So you can calculate the total cubic yardage of material to be moved. You can look at the volume of material that you have yet to move. You can look at the production you've accomplished over the next month or last month. You can look at the production of maybe that contract, and then you invoice the developer because you have all the data that you need to substantiate that. You can visualize it. You can analyze it. And you can even generate reports out of that solution.
Bryan Furnace:
Man, it is just fascinating how quickly technology is revolutionizing this industry. So that makes me kind of wonder. Is this real time updated information? In other words, if we started at the morning, and I knew there was X amount of cubic feet of material, or cubic yards of material that needed to be moved, and at 2:00 in the afternoon, I want to get a feel for how well the crew's performing, is that being updated in quick enough time that I'm able to see that in real time?
Jason:
Yeah. I would say it's near real time because we do have this lag from the job site to the cloud, the cloud to the portal. But yes, generally, we see customers wanting to make same day decisions. Right? If you go do something, you're looking at your site, you don't want to find out 24, 48 hours later that we didn't hit the production target, or actually, that pad is not on grade. I got bad information in that last phone call. In near real time, you're able to log on, and say at lunchtime, look at what you did in the morning and say, "Yep, we're doing good," or, "Actually, you know what, I can free up that asset and maybe move him over to grade those swales or something and take him off that pad." So that is the name of the game. With that machine control technology, the intelligent machine control technology, we really feel like we've given an aid to the operators and given some guaranteed consistency to the customer that, that asset's going to perform at X level, whether the operator has a good or bad day. That's the beauty of the data driven aspect of the machine control technology.
When you look at it from a job site management perspective, we want to give those same advantages to a job site manager. So he or she has that ability to visualize what is the current state of the job site. Where are they at versus plan? In this case, from a volumetric standpoint, so that they're then empowered to make decisions and just maybe plan for that job site accordingly. Because a lot of times, [inaudible 00:14:03] maybe labor shortage, or how the company is structured, those job site managers are not necessarily always on the job site. They could be in the pickup truck. They could be in the cab of the machine. Or they could be roaming around three or four different locations, and up until now, having to get verbally those updates, or having to do one of these. It's really beautiful when you can give them the actual numbers. It is 32,562 yards left to go. It helps out a lot.
Bryan Furnace:
Yeah. That is huge. Now is this information accessible via smartphone as well? Or is this something to really utilize the application side of it, that you need to be on a desktop computer or a laptop?
Jason:
Yeah. It's really up to the preference of the user. So it is all cloud based, so if you can get out to the cloud in your browser of choice, your device of choice, you can access it. Personally, I usually do a laptop because I'm a master at that track pad, and very quick making those measurements that I like to do. But yeah, some of our guys like to pull it up on a tablet, and that's very convenient for them. That's their preference, so to each their own.
Bryan Furnace:
Yeah, absolutely. It's nice to have options, especially in the field or if you're in the office, depending, to be able to pull it up either way is super handy. My final question kind of on the office side is, is this really ... Up until this point, we've kind of talked about it from a standpoint of kind of a material management software, takeoff software. Is this a true project management software? Or are we really kind of restricting ourselves to just worrying about the land balancing component?
Jason:
No. I think what Komatsu has tried to have done with smart construction is to really learn the job site and the customer's operations as best we can. You can say every customer's different, every job site is different. And that's true, there's always a unique aspect to it. But there's a couple guarantees out there, one, the weather is never good. Two, you're always hoping that your team shows up full strength and having their good day. But the other thing is there are a lot of similarities between these jobs. Every contractor, every ops manager would love to have let's say a true digital representation of a job site. They want to have the facts. They want to have it at their fingertips. They want to have it in their real time. So what Komatsu's done here with dashboard module, smart construction, looks at it from the 3D terrain volumetric perspective.
We have another solution called smart construction fleet that looks at it from the haulage perspective, how many loads of material for each truck, et cetera. Another solution I'd like to touch on is smart construction. Often, a solution looks at it kind of from a project management perspective, from a cost tracking, from activity reporting, from a scheduling perspective. So that's another key way. You get into say the weekly ops meetings that many of our customers have. They need to look at things from: Are we on schedule? Are we on budget? Are we making production? Then do we need to change some asset utilization, or the equipment later makes out there to hit the targets that we want?
So the office solution is a pretty neat one. It takes data from field that the labor force is collecting automatically with the smartphones. They can record machine hours, they can record labor hours. They can take pictures and snap activity on a job site. And that all goes up to the cloud again. And from that smart construction office solution, whether the person utilizing it is in the office, in the job site trailer three states away, they can get that data and see it automatically, and then automatically, it is highlighting if there is conflicts, if you're behind schedule, if it sees conflict that requires resolution. So it's a pretty powerful project management tool that can even make a project manager's or op manager's life a lot easier.
Bryan Furnace:
Yeah. Man, this is ... I love technology conversations just because it is revolutionizing this industry, and it's happening very, very quickly. So Jason, anything going on at CONEXPO where people can kind of get a little bit of hands on experience with this stuff that we've discussed today?
Jason:
Yeah. For those who are able to travel to CONEXPO, there's a lot of great things to see. The Komatsu booth will have all the intelligent excavators and dozers, as well as the rest of our construction and quarry lineup represented. And then in this area of technology, off machine technology, we will have a smart construction portfolio and the Komatsu experts there staffing that area, ready to go. So if you're able to come by, stop by, and glad to talk to you, show you what we've got. And customers can see firsthand how this might address some of their pain points and really bring some unique value to their operations.
Bryan Furnace:
Final question for you is: If someone wants to learn more about either intelligent machine control or the whole suite of products that you have to kind of supplement that, what's the best way to get ahold of someone?
Jason:
Yeah. Best way is call the guy you already know. So if you have a relationship with your local Komatsu distributor, they have technology experts on staff that will be glad to meet with you face to face and talk you through all of the options available, all the technologies available, but most importantly, listen to the customer about what pain points he or she might have, or what areas of need. The website for those who are tech savvy, that's a great place to go, lots of videos and material out there for late night reading enjoyment. There's so much available. That's what I would ask or challenge everyone, is take a peek at it.
There's no need to make a project schedule and it stays static for the life of the project, or it goes on the white board and never gets touched. These solutions are automatically updated for you, so you always have a relevant project schedule for your weekly meetings. The machine control technology is not the same as it was, again, five or 10 years ago. It has evolved. It is doing more and more than ever before.
And then drones, we've heard about it for a long time, it goes beyond drones. Drones are just a tool. These solutions to measure your progress in terms of volumetrics can really make the difference if you're managing a tight job site, if you're going to hit budget. You're maybe not surprised by some extra truckloads of export, which really can add up in the cost perspective.
Bryan Furnace:
Absolutely. Jason, thank you so much. This has been super informational. I appreciate it.
Jason:
Yeah. My pleasure. As you can tell, I love to talk about it, so any time.
Bryan Furnace:
As you can see, there are some very interesting and exciting things going on in the world of Komatsu when it comes to changing the industry and changing efficiency and productivity in the industry. Some of the intelligent machine control options that Komatsu is throwing out there is really starting to bridge the gap for some of our newer operators that aren't coming in with the skillset that the older generation had, really exciting stuff. So I hope this has helped you and your business. Stay tuned for another interview with Komatsu closer to CONEXPO. We'll catch you guys next time.