Roland Machinery Co. hosted an intelligent machine control demonstration at its location at 604 Stokely Drive, Deforest, Wis., on June 15. Lunch was provided at the event, and company representatives had Komatsu dozers and excavators, equipped with new intelligent machine technology, on site for customers to learn about and operate. The intelligent machines are designed to help customers increase their production, improve their performance, lower their costs and provide a high-quality finished product on their job sites.
Kyle McDowell, the technology solutions expert of Roland Machinery's fleet of intelligent machine control machinery, was one of the representatives on hand to help customers. He explained that intelligent machine control is an integrated technology for bulldozers and excavators.
“Basically, it's taking any kind of GPS machine control feature, any kind of machine automation feature, and integrating it into the machine directly from the factory,” said McDowell. “There are no wires and no extra components bolted on the outside of the machine. It also means you are only dealing with one product support source. You are dealing specifically with the Komatsu distributorship as far as all forms of support go — everything from GPS grade control products, all the way down to the machine control and the machine maintenance itself.”
Access to distributorship technology solutions staff comes standard with the D61PXi-size dozers and larger and all excavator models with integrated technology. This staff can remotely log in and support the GPS machine control systems. This support also is optional on smaller dozers with integrated technology. As long as the staff has a cellular connection, they can remotely control the GPS monitor allowing the staff to diagnose problems, walk an operator through the control features and settings and monitor GPS performance. In the past, a contracting company had multiple sources to call when an issue would arise. Roland Machinery's number one goal since the inception of these machines is to give customers peace of mind knowing they only need one contact for everything from oil changes to GPS.
McDowell also explained the differences between the excavator system and the dozer system. The dozer system is tied in, not only to the blade automation to control the height and the cut, but also is tied into the transmission control and engine control.
“The systems look at engine load as well as transmission load, and we can monitor track slippage to protect our final surfaces as well as blade load optimization,” said McDowell. “The machine is dictating how much material to cut and how much material to carry each time that it is put into the dirt. On our larger models and even as an option on our smaller models, we have a back drag feature where we can grade in reverse as well.”
One unique feature of the dozers is that it has the ability to run in automatic grade mode 100 percent of the time, according to the company. By allowing the factory integrated system to dictate blade load and track slippage, it allows the operator to primarily focus on how he is moving material, and not dividing his attention three different ways between a monitor, his material and the machine.
“On the excavators, which is kind of our bread and butter, we've actually made an excavator that when semi-Automatic grade control is turned on, comes down to a targeted design surface and stops. It automatically stops the boom and as the operator moves the arm in towards the house that boom will make height adjustments through the GPS system allowing the bucket to trace a targeted grade. No matter if it's a simple slope or a complex design that you are trying to follow a feature line on. That bucket will never over dig your surface, and it will never over dig on the side or the bottom, because it's looking at a complete profile of the bucket. No matter which portion the operator wants to work on, it's limiting that boom from ever over digging the surface. Even when semi-automatic mode is turned off in the machine, the monitor still gives all the same information as a traditional indicate excavation system would.”
For more information, visit www.rolandmachinery.com.
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