“As part of this fact-finding process, we visited Hope Construction Materials quarry site in Derbyshire to see a Sleipner unit in action. The site had similar issues to our operation, with the need to move an excavator to different benches to get the right products needed for a nearby cement works.


“Seeing the data from the site and the dramatic reduction in track wear, due to its Cat 390 being pulled along using the Sleipner units, we recognised there was a real opportunity to change the way we operated our primary excavator fleet.


“Working with Finning and Cat Finance, we were able to pull together a complete service and equipment package, that from a cost perspective really opened our eyes to the possibility of bringing the operation back in-house.


“It was a big decision to bring the fleet in-house and in addition to the financial elements we felt that there were real additional benefits to making the move. The first was the ability to employ new operators directly and invest in training them to optimise the performance of the equipment they would operate in the live mine environment.


“By looking at operator training in more depth with Finning, we also saw a long-term opportunity to change the schemes we put the operators through. This could mean changing over from the CPCS card scheme to the MPQC scheme, with a view to looking at the new Gold Card competency qualification.


“Anecdotally we have already seen operators react positively to the new fleet with a sense of pride that they display the Imerys logo.


"There was a real opportunity to change the way we operated our primary excavator fleet"


FINNING CAT


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