Lower GET Costs

Reducing GET Costs per Hour

There is always a lot of talk about reducing the cost per hour of your machines"¦ but you rarely hear about reducing your Ground Engaging Tools (GET) cost per hour. From scrapers and dozers to backhoes and motor graders, this "sacrificial iron" bears the brunt of the most challenging portions of your work. Did you know that, depending on application, your lifetime investment in GET can actually exceed the original purchase price of your machine? Why not make sure you're maximizing your investment?

Proper GET selection and management is essential to controlling your overall costs. There are several factors that affect getting the most productivity and value out of your GET. Well-managed GET components:

• Protect your buckets, rippers, blades and moldboards from premature wear
• Improve your machine's productivity and performance, so more material can be moved per hour
• Penetrate tough materials easier, reducing shock loads and other stresses, which ultimately extends machine and component life
• Reduce fuel consumption and therefore operating costs
• Reduce the risk of unscheduled downtime

To formulate a cost-saving, productivity-maximizing GET plan, there are five key factors to think about. Your Cashman Product Support Sales Representative (PSSR) can help you address:

• Selecting the right GET for the job
• Ensuring proper operating techniques
• Adhering to a rigorous maintenance schedule
• Keeping accurate records
• Analyzing worn iron to assess performance, measure life and identify problem areas

Inspections are at the core of a solid GET maintenance strategy. Operators, maintenance staff, and service technicians share responsibility for inspecting your GET, but your operator is your first line of defense against poor GET performance.

At the start of every shift, the operator should perform a quick walk-around of the machine, checking for loose or missing GET tips, retainers, adapter straps, and bolts, as well as looking for balanced wear. Such visual checks are important because GET problems may not be obvious by the way the machine handles. Operators should also watch for:

• Excessive wear or bending in corner areas
• Badly bent or broken-through corner gussets
• Cracked or worn areas at weld joints and along plates on the inside or underside of buckets
• Excessive wear or scalloping along base edges
• Excessive wear of retainer slots for side-pinned tips and adapters

Operators should also check the Maintenance Tips section of the Operations and Maintenance Manual (OMM) for information specific to the machine model. Your Cashman PSSR can easily provide additional information for diagnostics, if needed.

Additionally, maintaining a log for each job or jobsite to record the type of GET, how many hours each lasts, and production helps determine how to improve GET selection, performance, and managing costs. These records can help eliminate the need to keep a large stock of GET parts in the repair inventory because you'll be able to anticipate when a set of GET will wear out.

Any time an inspection reveals a problem, it's important to take action as soon as possible. A single loose bolt could cause a failure. Missing tips could result in premature wear of more expensive components. Other seemingly minor problems could have a negative impact on safety, productivity, performance and operating costs.

Some of the most common GET maintenance procedures include the following.

• Adjust the bucket positioner properly, verifying that the operator understands its function and does not override the adjustment.
• Rotate bucket tips regularly. Faster wearing corner tips should be switched with slower wearing center tips when possible.
• If repairing or replacing GET requires welding, always follow the OEM's welding procedures.
• Change edge segments before wear can extend into a dozer or motor grader moldboard.
• "Propel" overlay end bits (on a motor grader moldboard) when corner wear is high.
• Install ripper tips correctly (penetration tips with the rib up.)
• Tighten any loose hardware. Prolonged operation with loose hardware will cause bolt holes to elongate, GET to break and give rise to other maintenance problems.
• Use the proper procedure to tighten GET hardware, cleaning all surfaces of rust, paint, nicks and burrs, then tightening nut to the proper torque specification. Next, carefully strike the plow bolt head with a hammer. Finally, re-tighten nut to the published torque specification.
• When replacing missing or damaged hardware, always use hardened washers, nuts, and bolts.
• Repair all weld cracks.
• Replace worn protection material.

The ultimate goal of GET is to increase your machines' productivity and protect more expensive components , but that doesn't mean you can't implement a comprehensive GET management plan to help you reduce your costs even further. The experts at Cashman can help you manage these tools effectively and efficiently. Contact your Cashman Equipment PSSR at 1.800.937.2326 for more information.