CareTrack Goes Large Scale at Pennsylvania Landfill

It’s Monday morning and Max Persun settles in behind his computer to routinely put his fingers on the pulse of a complex and thriving operation. Persun, the Operations Manager of Wayne Township Landfill in McElhattan, PA, is tuning in to a live data stream and listening to the voices of the most efficient, durable and intelligent machines available: Volvo Construction Equipment.

A few hours before Persun arrived at his office, the Wayne Township Landfill equipment operators began their day racing each other to one of the 22 different pieces of Volvo Construction Equipment. The reason? They’re the favorites.

As his operators are looking through windshields of comfortable Volvo Construction Equipment cabins, Persun is looking at CareTrack – the machine monitoring and telematics system designed to help people like him make the right decisions about their businesses.

The landfill is owned and operated by the Clinton County Solid Waste Authority in north-central Pennsylvania. Clinton County Solid Waste Authority offers a variety of waste services including solid waste management, waste hauling, wood grinding, compost production and recycling that has allowed the authority to contribute significantly to the surrounding community and to sustain and preserve the environment.

Wayne Township Landfill primarily uses the machines for excavation and reconstruction of an existing landfill site as well as new waste landfill operation and in the mulch recycling operations.

Their fleet includes A35 and A40 articulated trucks, ECR58, EC140, EC330, EC360, EC380 and EC460 excavators, L30 compact wheel loaders, a G976 all wheel drive motor grader, and an L150, L220, and L350 front end loader.

“The way CareTrack has benefitted our operation,” Persun says, “is it allows me to basically download the information, take a look at where we’re at with work percentages versus idle percentages, and sit down with operators and talk as a group to see how we can increase performance of that machine and that operator.”

CareTrack’s daily hours report keeps track of how many hours per day machines work over a selected period of time. This allows for better planning of machine usage and fleet size. These reports are customizable, and can be automatically emailed on a daily, weekly or monthly basis. With fuel being such an integral part of any construction industry business, fuel usage reports are some of the most valuable tools available to any business owner or manager.

“With Care Track it’s allowed me to sit down and within 3-5 minutes pull a full report off that machine and digest that information,” Persun says. “That allows us to be a little bit more productive with the information we’ve got. This gives you all that within 5 minutes of your time and you can go on to do more productive things throughout the day.”

In addition to reporting, CareTrack boasts a smart and comprehensive service management function. Volvo Construction Equipment can “talk” to operators, operations managers, and even service technicians providing an array of information. Notifications can range from coolant levels to fuel feed pressure to work hours. And more.

Miles away from the landfill, Dana Bernier, a Service Manager at Highway Equipment and Supply Company gets a mobile alert notifying him that one of the a customer’s Volvo A35C articulated trucks is approaching 500 hours of service.

“I can get emails actually sent to my phone,” Bernier says, “that tells me the make, model and serial number on the machine that is up for a 500 hour service. It’s a handy little tool to have. That way I can call my customer and say, hey it’s time for a 500 hour service, would you like me to get the filters (ready)?”

CareTrack has helped create an easy and productive working relationship between Wayne Township Landfill and their Volvo dealer, Highway Equipment and Supply Company. That relationship keeps the landfill’s fleet of Volvo Construction Equipment in peak working condition – reducing downtime and increasing efficiency.

Chad Herron is the CareTrack Administrator at Highway Equipment and Supply Company, and he sees firsthand how the system helps customers stay ahead of service and cut down on repairs. “We have service agreements set up in CareTrack,” Herron says, “that will give us a reminder 50 hours before the machine is actually due for the service. That gives us a chance to pull the parts and have everything ready to go for when service actually comes due. It cuts down on the down time.”

This is possible through CareTrack’s ability to download MATRIS readings (Machine Tracking and Information System). MATRIS provides readings of usage characteristics without the need to be on site. MATRIS analysis provides historic data and analysis on each machine’s performance in easy to understand graph form. This data is shared between the owners, the dealer representatives, and the service technicians, allowing for remote diagnosis and more productive site visits.

As a service technician, Bernier’s excitement is palpable when talking about the innovative system. “MATRIS is really a good tool to use because whenever we see that we’ve got something specific going on it can keep track of things like over-heating, how many times an operator is starting per hour, and we can see all this in a broad scope. We can actually see trends that are going on that might actually help the customer in the long run.”

MATRIS is more than a diagnosis tool. For Max Persun and Wayne Township Landfill, it’s a teaching tool. He is able to work with his operators and present them with real data that allows them to do a better job of operating their Volvo Construction Equipment. “If we can educate these guys through MATRIS it allows us to be a little bit better prepared and save us a little more money,” Persun says. “If you’re real mobile it’s real simple and you get alerts with any error codes.”

In the days before CareTrack and MATRIS many companies were largely dependent upon operator reporting, internal maintenance, and calls to service technicians. It was not uncommon for machines to run past the regularly scheduled maintenance, which often resulted in more breakdowns, more time lost, and costlier repairs.

“Now we can actually get ahead of the game,” Bernier says. “We can actually keep those customers up and running. It’s just fantastic that we can do this for the customer. And the customer can keep the machine longer than he used to and increase production. ”

Through CareTrack customers are able to keep their machines running better and running longer. It’s no wonder that operators at Wayne Township Landfill start their days with a brisk walk towards the Volvo Construction Equipment. In addition to being comfortable and powerful – it’s always working.