New Cats at Hillhouse Quarry
Finning UK help Hillhouse Quarry Group reduce their mobile plant fleet size while sustaining productivity
FINNING UK have supplied three new Caterpillar machines to The Hillhouse Quarry Group, providing a solution to reduce the size of the company’s fleet by two units, while retaining the same level of productivity at its quartz-dolerite quarry in Ayrshire.
Following multiple on-site surveys conducted by Finning, and based on prior experiences that the Hillhouse Group had with Cat equipment, the company has invested in two Cat 775G off-highway trucks and a Cat 390D hydraulic excavator, as replacements for four smaller ADTs and a Cat 365C excavator.
The Cat 390D is larger than the previous excavator and features improved lift capacity to cope with the task of filling the Cat 775Gs. With an extended service period and proven reliability, the team at Hillhouse will also benefit from a sustained higher level of uptime at the site. For the equipment operators, the enhanced visibility and comfort of the new equipment will enhance on-site safety and operation.
Gary Jones, quarry manager for The Hillhouse Group, said: ‘Our highest priority was reducing fuel costs, while at the same time it was essential that we retained the same level of productivity we were able to achieve with the old set-up.
‘We had been engaged in conversation with a number of companies to help us achieve this, but it was Finning that provided the most cost-efficient and financially viable solution.’
He added: ‘We also asked Finning to help customize the excavator by installing extra-wide walkways all around the side of the machine. This set-up allows the engineer to reach all the important service points quickly and easily, enhancing safety.
‘With the Cat 390D being the main excavator at the site, obviously we need to keep it running optimally at all times, and this additional feature will help us achieve that.’
The Finning bespoke engineering team at Cannock worked on engineering the additional walkway, providing Hillhouse with a range of design options to choose from. Once confirmed, the designs were fabricated and retrofitted on to the Cat 390D at the Finning branch in Glasgow before delivery of the machine to site.
Alistair Murdoch and Allan Duffy, both from Finning, who worked on the deal, said: ‘Following an initial consultation with the team at Hillhouse and a number of on-site surveys, we put together a machine and service package that was designed to best meet their production needs.
‘We recommended the Cat 390D hydraulic excavator, as we felt this would offer a sufficient productivity improvement over the Cat 365C that they had been using previously.
‘The Hillhouse Group also benefitted from on-site induction training on all of the machines. In particular, as our machine experts were working alongside the operators, they were able configure the machines, particularly the Cat 775Gs, to customizable fuel-economy settings. This allowed the team to optimize the machine performance for the particular quarry environment.’
