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breakout
A HITACHI CONSTRUCTION AND MINING PRODUCTS PUBLICATION
Hitachi Construction and Mining Products • 1515 5th Avenue • Moline, IL 61265 • www.hitachiconstruction.com
Never sidetracked.
A “jack-of-all-trades” is good at some things, but great at nothing. That’s why at
Hitachi, we stay on course specializing in excavators. By not getting sidetracked, we
make exactly what you want. Great, reliable excavators.
hitachiconstruction.com
ThaT’s all.
How to figHt Moisture ContaMination, Part 2 — page 3
CHosen for rent by ContraC equiPMent ltd. — page 4
introduCing Zaxis 180lC-5 — page 7
nrg PiPelines relies on HitaCHi — page 8
goodfellow bros., inC. taCkles laHaina byPass — page 12
THIRD ISSUE 2012
ONtheINSIDE
What is your equipment telling you?
Telematics systems are being increasingly utilized in
equipment management, remotely connecting maintenance managers to their machines in the ﬁeld.
When a machine is equipped with telematics technology, like Hitachi’s own ZXLink™, real-time data
is collected from the machine via a communications
controller and sent wirelessly to a data server, where
it is populated for viewing online. Data can also be
delivered as a text message or email alert. This data
includes the “vital signs” of the equipment — its location, engine hours, idle time, and other maintenancerelated stats like ﬂuid levels, pressures, temperatures,
and maintenance intervals.
POWERED BY THEIR
Having this information at hand can help you
assess the health of the machine as well as document
its productivity levels. When cross-referenced with
ﬂuid analysis and machine inspection reports, this
data can help you make informed, cost-effective
decisions regarding equipment maintenance.
Systems also allow the dealer to access equipment
data. In many instances, a dealer can diagnose a maintenance issue or update machine software remotely
without a trip to the jobsite.
Regardless of your ﬂeet size, monitoring telematics
data can make a signiﬁcant improvement in machine
uptime. Most new machines come equipped with a
telematics system, but this technology can also be
installed on older models and on all-makes ﬂeets.
Ask your Hitachi dealer about our ZXLink™ Select
and ZXLink™ Ultimate equipment-management
systems and how they can work for you.
Kelly Granatier, Director, Sales, Hitachi Division
Hitachi Dash-5 are powered by the fuelefﬁcient Interim Tier 4-certiﬁed engines,
the new Dash-5s are more productive than
ever. Operators will also like them for their
wider cabs with improved visibility.
See your Hitachi dealer today about the
exciting new crop of Dash-5 excavators.
www.hitachiconstruction.com
InBRIEF
Questions
from the ﬁeld:
What’s the difference
between passive and
active exhaust-ﬁlter
regeneration in Hitachi
Dash-5 Excavators?
Passive regeneration is a natural cleaning
process where engine exhaust temperatures are sufﬁcient to oxidize the particulate matter (PM) trapped in the exhaust
ﬁlter. The process is continuous during
normal engine operating conditions, and
is the most fuel-efﬁcient way to clean.
But, if conditions (temperature, load, or
speed) for passive regeneration cannot
be achieved, then PM must be removed
using active regeneration, an automatic
cleaning process. This requires injecting
a small quantity of fuel into the exhaust
stream for a short duration and elevating exhaust temperatures to clean the
ﬁlter. The actual cleaning process takes
approximately 20 to 30 minutes. In most
applications, active regeneration cleaning
occurs only when passive regeneration
isn’t possible based on conditions — it
serves as a backup system.
Remember, in most cases, the regeneration process uses exhaust heat created
under normal engine operating conditions, so the operator won’t even notice
it’s taking place. In the event that an
active regeneration is necessary, the
engine’s control system can raise exhaust
temperature to regenerate the ﬁlter. With
either method, in most cases, regeneration does not impact machine operation or
require operator involvement.
Most of the processes with Isuzu’s Interim
Tier 4 (IT4) engines happen behind the
scenes, which enable operators to use
their equipment the same way they used
earlier Hitachi excavators powered by
Isuzu engines. The diesel particulate ﬁlter
is replaced at a minimum of 4,500 hours
by a Hitachi dealer.
For a more complete overview, read
the full tech tip in the ﬁrst 2012 issue
of Breakout.
HITACHI TECH TIPS
How to ﬁght moisture
contamination Part 2
In the second 2012 issue of Breakout, we looked at
how moisture contamination can get into lubricating
oils and your hydraulic system.
Now let’s look at a way to combat it — desiccant breather ﬁlters.
Finding the right breather will help the systems in your equipment last longer
and prevent unnecessary downtime and oil replacement. Desiccant breathers
are especially useful in environments that contain high dust and humidity levels.
Desiccant breathers are comprised of a silica gel that attracts and retains up to 40
percent of its weight in water. Together with a synthetic ﬁlter media, they prevent
moisture and particle contamination from getting into your reservoirs as pressure
ﬂuctuations occur through thermal expansion and contraction of the ﬂuid and the
level changes produced by the ﬁlling and emptying of the reservoirs. When carbon
is added to the silica gel, the breathers can capture oil mist and evenly disperse
incoming air so that the synthetic ﬁlter and silica gel combination works more
effectively. The more the air passes through both, the cleaner
it becomes. If a breather is designed with more vent holes to
allow variable airﬂow patterns, it increases the ﬁltration media
and desiccant drying capabilities.
Talk to your Hitachi dealer to learn more about desiccant
breather ﬁlters and how they can help you ﬁght moisture.
Some things to keep in mind when selecting desiccant breathers:
n When choosing a desiccant breather size, be sure to consider the amount of air exchanged (cubic
ft./min.) for each application. Airﬂow capacity must match or surpass the tank’s ﬁll and drawdown
rate. Breather size should increase as the ﬂow rates increase.
n Choose a steel or plastic breather housing, depending on your operating environment. Steel is a
better choice if you’re dealing with hot, dusty environments.
n Pay attention to the color of the silica gel as an indicator of when to change breathers, as most breather
manufacturers put dyes in the silica gel to facilitate a color change when the gel becomes saturated.
n If you operate in a damp and dirty environment with minimal air-volume changes, newer expansion-type
breathers can better control the breathing action and permit expansion and contraction of the airspace.
n Consider more speciﬁc applications for desiccant breather ﬁlters than mobile hydraulic systems, such
as switch gears, gearboxes, turbines, feed pumps, oil-cooled transformers, and diesel-fuel storage tanks.
3
4
Chosen for rent by
ConTrac
Equipment Ltd. “
W
e are one of the largest independent rental and
sales equipment suppliers in Alberta,” says
Michael Karczmarczyk, President, ConTrac. “We ﬁnd
equipment with the strongest market acceptance and
buy the best examples available in the market for use by
contractors. In many respects, we are the best testimony
to just how strong a particular brand is.”
Currently the company supplies Cat dozers, Hitachi
excavators, Volvo articulated trucks, and so on down the
line. All top brands. The machines are typically rented
to temporarily bolster a customer’s existing ﬂeet, but at
the same time, all pieces of equipment are for sale. And
actually, after they have been rented for a predetermined
number of hours, they are actively put up for sale as
used. All machines are aggressively maintained during
rental, making them good buys for ConTrac’s customers.
“The OEM’s have large rental ﬂeets, of course, and
there are certain equipment dealers who are also into
the rental of construction equipment,” notes Darren
Cels, Vice President, Sales and Rentals. “But what makes
us unique is our independence — and our interest in
selling. We’re not interested in buying the cheapest
brand. And we’re not interested being a single-brand
source. We’re okay buying new…
“We supply the top brands”
“...but again, our mission is to supply active, aggressive contractors with the top brands they would either
like to own or already have — and just need additional
numbers to serve their customers’ needs for a particular
project.”
ConTrac, as one of Alberta’s largest independent rental and sales
companies, offers Hitachi excavators. Shown are some of their
new Dash-5 models.
ConTrac offers a diverse ﬂeet of over 100 pieces
of equipment to rent or buy, allowing them to serve
customers in many different industries. The majority of
their ﬂeet consists of D6 to D8 dozers, ZX200 to ZX470
Hitachi excavators, 30- and 40-tonne articulated rock
trucks, and three- to four-yard wheel loaders.
5
Cathy Stein, Steph George, Shaun Malmo, Jany Paquette, John Karczmarczyk, Alex Ginda, Michael Karczmarczyk, Rob Serson, Darren Cels, Gord Krysa,
and Chris Halwa with Chris Mitchell, Wajax Equipment.
“Our focus is on serving and growing
only this middle market of heavy equipment,” says Karczmarczyk. “We are not
participating in the large mining-equipment segment. Our niche market is
providing excellent service and the best
brands to both market-leading contractors and smaller start-ups.”
What a top brand means
“I think it’s important to understand how crucial it is to be tied to a
market-leading piece of equipment,”
says Shaun Malmo, Vice President,
Finance and Operations.
In Western Canada, the market
acceptance of the Hitachi excavator
is excellent. Contractors know and
respect the productivity they’re going
to get.
“With new Tier 4 engine requirements, there was concern among our
customers that downtime and maintenance would increase,” continues
Malmo. “We really counted on Hitachi
bringing a ﬁnished product to market.
And so far, our experience with this
newest Dash-5 group of hoes we’ve
recently bought has proven that, yes,
Hitachi does have its act together. The
beneﬁt from our customer’s perspective
6
is that, as a contractor, when you show
up on the job with a market-leading
machine, totally government compliant,
100-percent ready in like-new condition, it creates a very good impression.
It’s as simple as that.
“And, you know,” Karczmarczyk
jumps in, “for us, going with top
brands also means preservation of our
equity. Similar to a good stock pick,
choosing the right brand and piece of
equipment gives us the best bet on the
ﬁnal outcome of our purchase after
we’ve rented it, in how we might be
able to retail it.
“Our experience in going with the
top brands has also meant we’ve had
less repair expense because the uptime
is better. Looking at that on the simple
side, I guess that’s an obvious but
often missed statement. On the more
sophisticated side, one can say that
buying a top brand like Hitachi for
excavators minimizes our exposure
to downside risk.”
Malmo adds, “There are two more
things we like about Hitachi and our
Hitachi dealer, Wajax Equipment. First,
we aggressively use ZXLink™ to keep
tabs on the equipment hours, mainte-
nance schedule, and any fault codes
that may arise. Our service manager
ﬁnds it is the easiest to use of all similar
programs, and has had instances where
replacement parts were delivered before
the customer knew there was an issue.
Second, we buy more than just excavator parts from Wajax, and we’re very
impressed with the level of service from
Shop Foreman Trevor Graham — he
provides us with a wealth of Hitachi
knowledge.”
For ConTrac, their number-one goal
is to convince a prospective customer
they should rent or buy from them. So
that’s why, to help make their case, they
carefully purchase the most popular
brands at the very best price. And then,
as the months go by on a rental, or
especially when the piece comes back,
ConTrac goes beyond the norm to ﬁx
and replace all possible damaged parts
so that when it leaves again either on
rental or to a permanent home, it is as
ﬁrst class as possible. And if it’s sold,
because of the high market acceptance
of Hitachi, the resale value is very
good, indeed.
ConTrac Equipment Ltd. is serviced by
Wajax Equipment, Edmonton, Alberta.
Hitachi introduces a new
model to North America:
the ZAXIS 180LC-5
w
hat happens when you specialize in excavators? You build
them better. You make them more reliable and productive. And you invent a
model like the ZX180LC-5. New to the
North American market, it is speciﬁcally designed to appeal to small local
contractors, water and sewer contractors, and those who dig basements and
pools. It packs excellent productivity
and fuel economy into a small package.
The ZX180LC-5 is slightly bigger
than the new 160LC-5, yet has a
unique boom/arm conﬁguration for
greater lift capacity and a wider undercarriage for more stability. It is lighter
and easier to transport than the nextsized up 210-5/210LC-5 Excavators,
yet can perform much of the same
work while saving diesel-fuel dollars.
Machine specifics
The ZX180LC-5 comes equipped
with either a 2.71-m (8-ft. 10-in.) or
3.21-m (10-ft. 6-in.) arm, and 600-,
700-, or 800-mm (24-, 28-, or 32-in.)
triple semi-grouser shoes. The powerful
IT4 Isuzu AI-4JJ1 diesel engine generates 90 kW (121 hp). Special features
such as a heated air-suspension seat,
additional lighting, and a rearview
camera are optional. Need even more?
Among other options are a controlpattern change valve, varying bucket
sizes, and high-ﬂow auxiliary hydraulic
packages.
Three work modes allow an operator to choose a digging style that ﬁts
the job. High Productivity (HP) delivers more power and faster hydraulic
response. Power (P) delivers a balance
of power, speed, and fuel economy for
normal operation. And Economy (E)
maximizes fuel efﬁciency while delivering an enhanced level of productivity.
RooMy cab with a view
The spacious cab features narrow
front posts, a wider door with more
glass, large overhead glass, and numerous mirrors — including one on the
counterweight — for excellent allaround visibility. Inside there is more
side-to-side footroom, a more comfortable high-back seat with increased slide
range, and an easy-to-read and easyto-operate LCD multifunction multilanguage monitor. Among other things,
the monitor tracks scheduled maintenance and reminders. It even provides
diagnostic codes to assist in troubleshooting, and includes an attachment
support system with 11 modes to help
ﬁt different attachments.
DuRability
Tungsten-carbide-coated wear surfaces protect the all-important bucketto-arm joint. Reinforced resin thrust
plates, grooved bushings, and thermalcoated bucket joints increase arm- and
boom-lube intervals to 500 hours.
Oil-impregnated HN bushings enhance
durability and extend grease intervals
to 500 hours for the arm and boom
joint and 100 hours for the bucket
joint. Reinforced D-channel side frames
provide maximum cab and component
protection.
ZXlink™ ultiMate — stanDaRD
The new Hitachi ZX180LC-5 comes
standard-equipped with three years
of ZXLink Ultimate, enabling 24/7
online access to machine location,
health, utilization, fuel consumption,
and other valuable information for
better understanding of costs and
jobsite performance.
For more information visit your
local Hitachi dealer or go online to
www.hitachiconstruction.com
7
NRG Pipelines
relies on Hitachi for
for best production
“w
e’re at the site of a fairly typical project for us,” says Troy
Thompson, Senior Vice President,
Services Group, NRG Pipelines Ltd.
“We’re digging trench and installing
1550 meters (5,085 ft.) of double-ﬂex
pipe for one of our customers near
Garrington, Alberta. We’ve brought in
three Hitachi excavators for the job —
a ZX200LC-3 and two ZX250LC-5
machines, plus dozers and support
8
equipment. We’ve been here ﬁve days,
and we’ll be ﬁnished in another day or
two. The pipelines tie together multiple
oil wells to a valve station where the
oil ﬂow is controlled for feeding into a
larger collector pipe with a valve package that we’ve built.
12 inch. And, we’re actively involved
in specialty work as well. For example,
we just ﬁnished the ﬁrst install of
a new, high-temp insulated pipe in
Canada. We’ve place 22 kilometers
(13.7 mi.) near Swan Hill in 31 days —
that was a very good project.”
“Although a lot of ﬂex pipe is used in
Alberta, we’re also placing quite a bit
of midbore pipeline from two inch to
New, with years of experieNce
The company came together as a
new effort about 12 months ago. And,
in March 2012 they surpassed 100 employees. They’ve had the opportunity to
bid and win some rather large fabrication work for the Swan Hills area, so
they established a 1626-m2 (17,500
square feet) shop in White Court. And
much of their larger projects are in
far northern Alberta. But, the division
established in the Red Deer area will
grow too, leaving more tie-in and ﬂex
pipe work.
and construction management, with
increasing experience in business
management and ﬁnance.
“This last month we’ve breached
into Saskatchewan with a new project
that we’re kicking off next week,” says
Thompson. “We’ve accomplished a lot
in a small amount of time.”
“I know we’re going to make a success of this company,” asserts Thompson. “Too many guys start a business
like what we’re doing here as oil and
gas booms, along with the dream of
becoming rich. Well, everyone who is
okay with really working would love
to be rich.”
Although the company is new, the
team is far from new to the work, and
has many references and industry ties.
Thompson has worked for multiple
contractors during the past 17 years,
starting as a pipeﬁtter, and working up
the ladder to welder, operator, supervisor, and then project manager for both
contractors and oil companies.
Terry Regenwetter, Senior Vice
President, Corporate Services, is a
mechanical engineer and has worked
since graduation as a design engineer
within the petroleum industry of
Alberta. Additionally, he has been
involved in real-estate development
Mike Runcer’s skills parallel Thompson’s: hands-on work since he was 19,
working his way up from laborer to
operator to superintendent to project
management. He is senior vice president, Projects Group. “We’ve learned
how to complement each other, and
we’re both driven to succeed.
But, too many guys don’t have their
heart in the business. They’re not really
willing to walk the walk.
“The oil patch requires all out effort.
It’s a 24/7 type of business. I think
we’ve proven that we have the heart.
I know that our customers believe we
do; they wouldn’t have trusted us with
their business so quickly if they didn’t.
So now we’re walking the walk, and
rising to the everyday effort of simply
getting the job done like we said we
“The Hitachi excavator is
our ﬁrst choice because of
its rugged dependability.”
— Troy Thompson,
Senior Vice President
9
“I’ve spent my life in the oil patch; growing up in it and working
for multiple contractors from high school on. And now, using all
of our resources, Mike, Terry, and I are embarked on building
the best pipeline-services company we can.”
— Troy Thompson, Senior Vice President
would. We know what it takes, and we
know what it should cost to be fair to
everyone. Our closest friends are in this
industry, and many of them are now
working here. We’re almost family.”
Why hitachi and Wajax?
“There are multiple reasons why
we went with Hitachi excavators and
Wajax Equpment, Canada’s Hitachi
dealer,” continues Thompson.
“First, in Alberta the Hitachi hoe is
an industry standard. When you look
around at the big guys in our business
who continue to be successful — they
all have Hitachi. The company where
I used to work and manage projects
was 100-percent Hitachi, and we were
continually impressed with how well
they worked.
10
“I know as it relates to this article
that we’re one of the ﬁrst to really
experience the newest Dash-5 Hitachi
models using newest engine modiﬁcations to meet the increased pollution
controls. So, here’s what we have experienced: The new Isuzu engine works
better than the one in the Dash-3
Series. It has worked good from the
start, with more power and better fuel
economy. So, no big deal on worrying
about the newest engines as far as we’re
concerned.
“As a start-up company, we were
relieved to learn how aggressive Wajax
Equipment was in for pursuing our
business. They have worked with
us from the word ‘go’ in getting us
the equipment we needed, when we
needed it. And, they have helped us
with suitable ﬁnancing. We wanted to
be exclusive — one brand and all new
— because that sets the image. We’re
going to be on a 5,000-hour rotation so
our equipment is always current; every
three years, we’ll be new. We want to be
ﬁrst class, not showboaters, but solid.
NRG Pipelines continues to be impressed with how well the Hitachi’s work.
“I already knew how strong Wajax
product support was from my past
dealings with them. Now, I’ve had the
opportunity to learn the full extent
of their business approach to making
things happen. Our ﬁrst order was for
six hoes, and we’ve continued to add.
We’re now at 13. It is hard to get good
construction equipment in Alberta
right now. Too often, there are plenty
of delays and broken promises. But the
Wajax group hasn’t let us down. And
that’s what I learned before we struck
out on our own.
“We are determined to be a 30-hoe
company successfully working in the
Western Canadian oil patch,” says
Thompson.
“To get there,” say the three partners,
“we know that we’ll have to truly
keep heart, do what’s got to be done,
and operate both productively and
efﬁciently so our customers are both
proud of what we do for them and
happy enough to see the bill.”
NRG Pipelines is serviced by Wajax
Equipment, Red Deer, Alberta.
NRG Pipelines is a certiﬁed fabricator of
custom pressure vessels, separator packages,
line heaters, and choke manifolds.
11
Goodfellow Bros., Inc.
tackles the
Lahaina Bypass
l
ahaina, located on the northwest
coast of Maui, was once a busy
whaling port and the capital of the
Kingdom of Hawaii. Today, tourism
reigns as king, with the town’s population swelling nearly 400 percent
during peak seasons. Such an inﬂux
of people puts quite a strain on the
arterial roadways, and even off season,
trafﬁc can snarl.
The need for a bypass around
Lahaina was identiﬁed over 30 years
ago, and ever since then residents had
been anxiously awaiting the highway
to be authorized and the planning
hurdles resolved. As most major highways in northern Maui hug the coastline on one side and are hemmed in
by buildings or natural barriers on the
other side, existing roads cannot easily
be widened. So it was decided to build
the Bypass further inland, closer to the
central volcanic-formed mountains
and their water-carved gulches. This
ensured plenty of construction space,
but meant dealing with less-thanfriendly terrain.
In 2008, construction ﬁnally got
underway. Five phases were established,
with Goodfellow Bros., Inc. (GBI) currently tackling the complex Phase 1B-1
— a 2.81-km (1.745-mi.) stretch complete with a 30.5-m (100-ft.) bridge,
T-intersection, paved shoulders, trafﬁc
signal, and an agricultural-equipmentcrossing tunnel.
“We’ve worked in Hawaii for 40
years building roads, bridges, subdivisions, shopping centers, golf courses,
and hotels on all the inhabited islands,”
says Ray Skelton, Director of Business
Operations — Maui, Kauai, and
Molokai. “We’re excited to be a part
of a long-overdue project, especially
as many of us live right in the area.”
Inland challenges
As the Bypass is being built inland,
away from heavily populated areas,
one would think blasting would be the
best way to remove the extremely hard
volcanic basalt rock. But this project
did not allow for drilling and blasting
in the speciﬁcations. Instead, it called
for all material to be removed by an alternate means. GBI chose to rely on its
Hitachi excavators to get the job done.
“Our Hawaiian basalt rock is known
for being very hard and difﬁcult to
extract,” explains Bo McKuin, Project
Manager. “We pride ourselves on our
ability to rip basalt rock — it is one of
our specialties. For this project, we used
up to four Hitachi excavators equipped
with rippers and hammers, along with
some dozers and other equipment. We
had three ZX450LC-3s already here
on Maui, but the biggest excavator in
our ﬂeet, the ZX800, we shipped from
Washington State, where we also maintain ofﬁces.”
“Of the 496 957 m3 (650,000 cu. yd.)
of material we had to excavate, about
Excavators were the key to removing 152 910 m3
(200,000 cu. yd.) of basaltic rock.
12
Blasting was not called for in the bid
specs. Excavators equipped with rippers
and hammers got the job done.
Goodfellow Bros., Inc.
Family owned since its beginnings
in Wenatchee, Washington, in 1921,
today the third and fourth generation
of Goodfellow brothers specialize
in large infrastructure projects. The
company has built transportation
systems, housing, and recreational
facilities.
In 1972, the company won a bid for
a project for a sewage-treatment
plant on Maui. In the decades since,
GBI has built both government and
private-sector projects on all the
major Hawaiian islands.
Today the company does business
throughout North America and the
Paciﬁc, from Virginia and Florida, to
Pilau and Guam. It also owns two
subsidiary companies: Blasting
Technology, Inc. and Paciﬁc Drilling.
Although times have changed, the
company’s credo has not: Give
premium service. Create a quality
product. Satisfy the client.
13
Look at the size of that rock!
The ZX800 handled it with ease.
183 492 m3 (240,000 cu. yd.) was
basaltic rock,” says Skelton. “In excess
of 152 910 m3 (200,000 cu. yd.) of that
rock was removed using excavators
and dozers. For the remainder, DOT
and the community granted us permission to blast. So drilling and shooting
took care of just a small fraction of the
overall rock we had to remove; it was
the Hitachi excavators that did the bulk
of the work. They got the job done.”
Most of the excavated rock was processed and crushed on-site and reused
for the roadbed. It also provided backﬁll for drainage systems. GBI estimates
that as a company, they process and
reuse a higher ratio of excavated materials than other competing contractors.
Although GBI carved and graded
four lanes out of the landscape, only
the two inland-most lanes will be
paved. As more money becomes available in the future, the rest will be paved
to create a divided four-lane highway.
Now that the grading and mass
excavation portion is completed, there
is much more work for the Hitachi
excavators to do.
“We use our Hitachi excavators to
support all of the facets involved in this
14
project — from utility relocation and
rock ripping to forming detailed footing for the concrete structures,” says
McKuin. “We’ve equipped them with
Trimble GPS guidance so our talented
operators can precisely follow the
project models we’ve established.”
The big shifT
“Over the last 30 years, we’ve moved
from dozer/loader to excavator-intensive operations,” says Skelton. “We
run a lot of Hitachi excavators.”
“We have about 50 Hitachis in our
ﬂeet,” elaborates John Stump, GBI’s
Equipment Department Manager.
“We’ve been using Hitachi since about
1994, and they’ve done well for us.
In fact, we’ve just purchased ﬁve new
ZX470LC-5s, and they’re all in Hawaii
— two on Oahu and three on Maui.”
GBI’s service crew makes the rounds
each day to fuel the ﬂeet, record the
hourmeter readings, grease them, and
so on. They handle the 250- and 500hour scheduled maintenance themselves on the excavators, while tending
to turn the higher-hour ones over to
their supporting dealers — American
Machinery for Hawaii and Papé Machinery for the mainland. GBI forecasts
about 10 days in advance when scheduled maintenance will be required, then
works with the appropriate dealer to
ensure parts will be on hand.
“We’ve some 450s that are up
around the 9,000-hour mark, but typically we’ll cycle out machines every ﬁve
years or at 7,500 hours,” adds Stump.
“If things are slow, we’re more apt to
sell a newer machine with lower hours
because it has more resale value.
“Hawaii’s basalt rock is really hard
on all of our equipment. Hitachi excavators hold up very well, but we’re
always checking the booms, sticks,
buckets, and ripper shanks. And we
endeavor to be in constant communication with the manufacturer and the
dealer to make sure we’re all on the
same page and are working toward the
same target. It’s a constant challenge.”
“We look at performance, price,
service costs, and dealer support,” concludes Skelton. “We wouldn’t be using
Hitachi if it didn’t meet our requirements.”
Goodfellow Bros., Inc. Maui operation is
serviced by American Machinery, Wailuku,
Maui, Hawaii.
ONtheINSIDE
What is your equipment telling you?
Telematics systems are being increasingly utilized in
equipment management, remotely connecting maintenance managers to their machines in the ﬁeld.
When a machine is equipped with telematics technology, like Hitachi’s own ZXLink™, real-time data
is collected from the machine via a communications
controller and sent wirelessly to a data server, where
it is populated for viewing online. Data can also be
delivered as a text message or email alert. This data
includes the “vital signs” of the equipment — its location, engine hours, idle time, and other maintenancerelated stats like ﬂuid levels, pressures, temperatures,
and maintenance intervals.
POWERED BY THEIR
Having this information at hand can help you
assess the health of the machine as well as document
its productivity levels. When cross-referenced with
ﬂuid analysis and machine inspection reports, this
data can help you make informed, cost-effective
decisions regarding equipment maintenance.
Systems also allow the dealer to access equipment
data. In many instances, a dealer can diagnose a maintenance issue or update machine software remotely
without a trip to the jobsite.
Regardless of your ﬂeet size, monitoring telematics
data can make a signiﬁcant improvement in machine
uptime. Most new machines come equipped with a
telematics system, but this technology can also be
installed on older models and on all-makes ﬂeets.
Ask your Hitachi dealer about our ZXLink™ Select
and ZXLink™ Ultimate equipment-management
systems and how they can work for you.
Kelly Granatier, Director, Sales, Hitachi Division
Hitachi Dash-5 are powered by the fuelefﬁcient Interim Tier 4-certiﬁed engines,
the new Dash-5s are more productive than
ever. Operators will also like them for their
wider cabs with improved visibility.
See your Hitachi dealer today about the
exciting new crop of Dash-5 excavators.
www.hitachiconstruction.com
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A HITACHI CONSTRUCTION AND MINING PRODUCTS PUBLICATION
Hitachi Construction and Mining Products • 1515 5th Avenue • Moline, IL 61265 • www.hitachiconstruction.com
Never sidetracked.
A “jack-of-all-trades” is good at some things, but great at nothing. That’s why at
Hitachi, we stay on course specializing in excavators. By not getting sidetracked, we
make exactly what you want. Great, reliable excavators.
hitachiconstruction.com
ThaT’s all.
How to figHt Moisture ContaMination, Part 2 — page 3
CHosen for rent by ContraC equiPMent ltd. — page 4
introduCing Zaxis 180lC-5 — page 7
nrg PiPelines relies on HitaCHi — page 8
goodfellow bros., inC. taCkles laHaina byPass — page 12
THIRD ISSUE 2012