After 18 months of successful field trials, MineWare has announced the launch of its Argus Wheel Loader (WL) system – an OEM independent wheel loader monitoring system that is said to lift productivity and reduce cost per tonne in real time.
Argus WL delivers real-time feedback to the wheel loader operator via an intuitive touchscreen to make material handling and loading jobs safer, faster and more accurate.
MineWare vice president of marketing and sales Roy Pater says Argus WL extends MineWare’s portfolio of monitoring systems as customers continue to digitise their operations and leverage real-time information across more of their ground engaging equipment.
“Building on the success of our Argus and Pegasys monitoring systems for electric rope shovels, hydraulic excavators and draglines, Argus WL was developed based on a growing demand from our customers to improve efficiency, effectiveness and payload accuracy across their large wheel loader fleets,” he says.
“Argus WL does this by weighing each bucket in real time, without the need to stop and calculate payload before dumping the load. This we understand from our customers is an unacceptable practice required from other similar systems today, losing valuable production time to repeat this with every bucket load.
“Argus WL was a natural progression for us, meeting the industry’s need for a system purpose built for large wheel loaders used in mining that would lower production costs, reduce machine stress and improve safety.”
Pater says the multi-purpose nature of the system was a key point of difference with Argus WL offering advanced functionality in truck detection, structural monitoring, as well as payload optimisation in real-time.
“The real-time nature of Argus WL really stands our system apart as it gives operators direct feedback for them to make smarter loading decisions to optimise truck loading and payload management,” he says.
“Argus WL guides operators to move the right amount of material with every load, helping mines to reduce payload variability, meet production targets and predict the operations forecasts more reliably, when analysing machine productivity by shift and operator.”
Developed on an open IoT platform, the interoperable system works on any OEM machine and integrates seamlessly with third party production software.
