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A Vehicle- and Equipment Costing Database for Mining,
Earthmoving, and Materials-Handling Industry

The Need:

  • Record orders issued for spares for mobile earthmoving and materials-handling equipment.
  • Track when orders where received and paid
  • Allocate costs to specific machines/vehicles
  • Record fuel and oil usage and costs per machine/vehicle
  • Build up a picture of all running costs per machine/vehicle
  • Monitor these costs and achieve savings where possible
  • Calculate when to replace equipment that is no longer cost-effective
  • Visualise equipment data using graphs.
  • Transfer orders into Pastel Accounting, obviating re-typing of orders.

The Solution!

Archer Mining in collaboration with Software Africa has over several years developed and tested a database to handle the above.  Named EquipCost, it has been tested on open-cast mines at Delmas, Sishen and Mamatwan, where it has produced significant cost savings.

Each order for parts is allocated to a machine and tracked through to payment.  Likewise, we record fuel and oil issued per machine.  These costs can then be viewed or graphed, individually or in total, on a monthly basis, projected into the future, and compared to budget.  Capital costs and interest can be included.  Non-performing machines, or classes of machine, can be identified and replaced.

EquipCost is applicable to mobile equipment in general and can be used in the earthmoving and material handling industries. This includes for example; construction, mining, industrialised agriculture, forestry, materials handling and plant hire.  The highway transport industry is another possibility.

Users say that EquipCost is easy to learn to use, and quickly becomes a reliable and user-friendly source of information for management on the shop floor.  It provides an easy-to-get answer to the question “how are we doing?” –rather than a store of complex engineering data that requires high-level analysis before it can produce information that the shop floor can relate to.

For the Accountant and the Chief Financial Officer, the program becomes an invaluable tool.  Procurement orders are tracked from order through to payment:  The monthly status reports that can be generated about this are extremely useful for the compilation of monthly financial statements.

The software has now reached a stage of sophistication and has a long enough track record of proven results for it to be licensed to other companies on a monthly or annual basis.

EquipCost can be run on a single PC or a network running Microsoft Windows.  The program compliments the Equipment Cash Flow (EquipBudget) system mentioned here. EquipCost records historical data and is a useful check on the input to EquipBudget, which looks at future cash flows

Other Features

  • Draw a Service Schedule
  • Run actual LCC (Life Cycle Costs)
  • Check for warranty claims
  • Check for double payments
  • Show outstanding orders and payments
  • SMR (Service Meter Readings) reports
  • Breakdown of costs into categories, i.e. R&M (Repairs and Maintenance), Filters, T&T (Tyres and Tracks), GET (Ground-Engaging Tools), Oils & Lubes, and Accidents.
  • Weekly, monthly, and yearly cost reports
  • Export data to run a monthly Excel or PowerPoint presentation.
  • Export new orders into a CSV file that can be imported into Pastel Accounting.

Contact Us Now!

Send Rick an e-mail for information about the "EquipCost" database

  • Please include your company details (physical and postal address, telephone, fax and e-mail, and contact person's name),
  • and tell us a bit about your company and what you do.

We or Archer Equipment will contact you to arrange a demonstration.

Related Links:

Continuous Improvement of Equipment Maintenance Operations
Continuously Reduce the Cost of Mining in Real Terms


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