‘Digital’ and ‘Process’ Efficiency
Electrification is not the only “green” card for construction equipment to improve efficiency. The spotlight is also on improving the whole process rather than focusing on the efficiency of individual machines.
We witness the whirlwind of electrification sweeping over the automotive industry in an unprecedented way, and it has not sparred the construction and off-highway segments either. With the emission norms getting more stringent and the public pressure on industries to go for sustainable technologies growing stronger than ever across the globe, the development of vehicles and machines with electric drive is a plausible corollary.
At the bauma 2019 trade fair held at Munich earlier this year, we saw leading off-highway OEMs and powertrain suppliers advancing zero-emission machines and a variety of electric and hybrid technologies for CE. Unlike the previous editions, a majority of them were production-ready models that are both practical and affordable. The prophecy of bauma – the world’s largest and leading construction equipment fair – is bound to be accurate; what else can be a better ‘industry barometer’ in predicting the evolution and technological megatrends of the construction equipment into future?
However, the expo measured the technological evolution of the off-highway industry beyond electrification. The spectacle of a wide range of technologies and solutions on digitalisation, telematics, networked ecosystem, and autonomous operations affirmed that electrification of machines is not an end in itself, but a means to the larger goal of efficiency and sustainability. In particular, the concept of ‘connected construction sites’ caught my attention, wherein process efficiency is core value rather than the efficiency of each machine working in silos.
While construction machines in the developed markets are already equipped with a slew of sensors and connected interfaces to collect and share comprehensive data sets on location, performance, and fuel efficiency, the industry is now moving towards standardisation to have effective digitalisation, wherein machines from different manufacturers can talk to each other and share data to become smarter and efficient as a whole. The AEMP 2.0 telematics standard is unanimously supported by OEMs and suppliers, which creates a common data format to facilitate operators to leverage mixed fleet data together on a single portal or enterprise business system.
Almost 20 common parameters are part of the latest standard including asset identification, operating hours or miles, idle time and average power percentage, engine temperatures, fuel level, and so on. It replaces AEMP 1.0, launched in 2010, that maps only four points – location, plant identification, operating hours, and fuel consumption. Construction sites are bound to have fleets of different OEMs and machine types, and having access to a consolidated data of the whole fleet can help operators to manage and operate them efficiently. With this, intelligent machines with autonomous capabilities are the next plausible corollary of the technological evolution in off-highway equipment.
Experts say that it is possible to improve the overall efficiency of a fleet by 50 percent with this holistic concept because it involves evaluating the application as a whole. Also, combining telematics data with operational or logistics data offers further scope for process optimisation, by way of balanced machine utilisation, adapted deployment, renting less utilized machines, or better plan for maintenance to avoid unexpected downtime. Digital solutions also play a great deal in improving the safety of machines and job sites, may it be camera systems or 3D terrain mapping and sophisticated algorithms to locate objects with precision, essential for those working applications where visibility is poor or mishap vulnerability is higher.
In a nutshell, optimising processes through digitalisation and interoperable data sharing in a construction site is yet another means towards the ultimate goal of efficiency and sustainability. Unlike electrification, this approach would require fewer investments and shorter time for adoption, while also extending its scope beyond emission-free operations. This is very relevant for markets like India, where talks on electrification of construction equipment would be in apropos at this moment. Besides industry discussions on stringent emission norms, we should kick start wider adoption of basic telematics and digital fleet management solutions, in pursuit of better efficiency and safety.
I would love to know what you think; email your views to dhiyanesh@motorindiaonline.in