Future within grasp with Komatsu

Komatsu is ahead of the curve when it comes to Smart Construction and Intelligent Machine Control (IMC), changing the way projects are designed, planned, and executed. James Muir General Manager – Smart Construction explains what’s next for the company in this exciting space.

From inventing the world’s first Autonomous Haulage System in 2008, developing an electric bulldozer capable of operating underwater, to conceptualising an excavator that can operate on the moon, Komatsu has long been a pioneer in construction machinery.

The company’s extensive range of digital and data-driven technologies are the culmination of more than a century of invention and creation, with its Japanese roots and strong Australian ties creating strong market penetration.

If you’ve operated any Komatsu kit in the past few years, there’s a chance that you’ve benefitted from one of these technologies.

Autonomous features, such as stop control, grade assist, tilt control and bucket precision are just a handful of calibrated features that have – for years – helped to reduce mistakes, damage and unnecessary rework. All the while making it easier, more efficient and more accurate for operators to carry out day-to-day works.

James Muir, General Manager, Smart Construction – Komatsu says the technology in construction is rapidly evolving, with many companies across the sector pushing each other. The end users will be the ultimate beneficiary.

“There’s so many different solutions in the Smart Construction portfolio, some are moving faster than others, but the one thing that is consistent is that customers want to have immediate benefit, and a return on investment within 12 months,” he says.

“Demonstrating that value is our key focus.”

So how does Komatsu set itself apart?

Komatsu’s unique approach recognises that customers are likely to have different machinery types from different manufacturers, which is why the company set out to develop solutions that can be used universally.

Reflecting on this decision, Muir says there’s no priority greater than the demands and requirements of the customer.

“One of the key driving factors for the success we’ve had with our technologies is that they’re agnostic and will work with other OEMs (original equipment manufacturers) and brands,” he says. “We export and receive data freely; we think that’s vitally important. As much as we’d like customers to be completely in our ecosystem, that flexibility is very important to the customer.

“They want all their data centralised so they can utilise it across the entire project and make actions and decisions accordingly. We want our customers to be able to work with us, no matter the tools or solutions that they’ve already invested in.”

Muir adds that the only way to build a product that fits all customer needs, is to incorporate learnings and feedback from the end user.

“The number one driving factor for us is the voice of the customer,” he says. “To a certain point we will keep products under wraps, for secrecy. But at some stage, the customers viewpoint always helps to mould the outcome.”

Just one example of this has been Komatsu’s new Smart Quarry Site platform. The technology, which focuses on site management, production management, machine health monitoring, near real-time
(30 second intervals) monitoring and increasing safety, was designed with
customer input front of mind.

“It’s been built from the ground up from the voice of the customer and the quarry industry,” Muir says. “We wanted to see what they’d want from a productivity tool. That’s how we continue to develop and improve our products, with the voice of the customer resoundingly loud in our ears.”

Each piece of input, on each piece of machinery and equipment, helps Komatsu to establish a holistic package, tailored for the industries that it provides for.

“What we keep hearing, particularly for those major infrastructure projects, is that they need holistic solutions,” Muir says. “If you were to make one piece of equipment or one part of a project more efficient, it might help to make things finish faster in isolation, but then it just sits there.

“Unless you’ve got the entire value chain improving on every element of that project, you’re not achieving the overall productivity gains that you’re targeting or could be reaching, which would be around a 30-40 per cent improvement. That’s why it’s important to have agnostic and sharing of information. The Tier Ones in particular want to be the masters of their own destiny by using data effectively. That’s why we’re providing tools that meet that demand.”

Greener outcomes

Greater productivity and efficiency are apparent positives of Komatsu’s Smart Construction and iMC portfolios. So are greener outcomes. But how does this translate to greater sustainability you might ask.

Komatsu machinery equipped with iMC technology can support more sustainable practices by minimising unnecessary material movement and emissions.

By using the semi-autonomous operation of iMC, operators avoid over-cutting and rework, thus reducing the volume of required ‘fix ups’ or re-runs, helping machinery to consume less fuel on each section.

Muir says he’s seen examples of businesses saving 30 per cent in fuel costs across their iMC fleet, and time application efficiencies of +20 per cent by minimising rework or unproductive idling of machines waiting for survey pick-ups. This all translates to tonnes of CO2 (carbon dioxide) saved over the period of a single project.

“Back to the Smart Quarry Site. It has a machine, peer to peer communication tool for loading. Say it’s an excavator, or a wheel loader in the back of a truck, you can get immediate payload feedback off the truck struts, so you can see the weight in real time. When it comes to greener outcomes in quarry, we have examples of companies saving 81,000 litres of fuel and 217 tonnes of CO2 emissions in just one year, thanks to the efficiency gains provided by SQS,” Muir says.

“The distribution of the material in the tray of the truck is represented by a digital spirit level indicator, so you can get a nice even load. What that means is that the truck is going out at a maximum targeted capacity each time. That means real dollars, because you’re loading the truck more efficiently and it also, importantly, means there’s less trucks and less loading cycles required. Not to mention the productivity gains.”

These efficiency gains can also help to increase the safety of a construction site. One example Muir uses relates to surveying.

“IMC is survey grade accurate, so it’s plus or minus 25 millimetres,” he says. “As a result, you’re not having to have a surveyor jump into a pit and do pick-ups all the time. You can easily, safely and quickly see ‘yes you’re on track’ for the digital design plan loaded into the iMC, or ‘no you’re not’, ‘you need to dig a little more over there’.

“You’re moving the person – who could be at risk – out of the pit, while also potentially increasing the efficiency of your operation by up to 20-30 per cent.”

Tying back to the sustainability side, Muir says Komatsu is actively engaging the market, as well as its business partners, to accelerate the development and uptake of sustainably fuelled machinery.

“We’re currently releasing tier four engines, but Australia itself is not mandating tier four. In Europe they’ve already mandated the use of tier five, so we are lagging,” Muir says. “It would help if the government looked to adopt at least tier four, as the NOx (nitrogen oxides) reduction alone at that level is substantial.

“It’s an important issue to us as a company. We’re committed to our own targets and on top of what we’re doing on the engine side, we’re producing electric excavators and electric wheel loaders. We’re also in the final testing stage with hydrogen fuel cells in Japan and in the US, so we’re adopting new products and methods that we hope to bring to Australia.”

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Strong support

Komatsu has recognised that an IT service is only as good as its IT support. That’s why the company has a strong focus on ensuring that customers, wherever possible, are talking to a real person who’s trained in the technology. Komatsu’s dedicated ICT Help Desk provides 24/7 support for its smart construction solutions and technologies.

Through this platform, support staff can remotely access machinery to best diagnose and treat any related issues.

Komatsu also provides a number of online ‘self-help’ resources, with instructional videos and articles helping customers to learn and troubleshoot issues.

“We also have customer technology advisors, who are like consultants that can go and help our customers to create an entire digital project site,” Muir says. “They can also go that one step further and be a part of that customer’s team to help them set up the entire digital solution.”

Formal training courses are also available through the company’s Komatsu Training Academy, where customers can learn how to effectively use and operate the Smart Construction technologies, both in a classroom setting and on the machines.

“We’ve recently acquired a company that’s allowed us to put operators into machinery simulators, that way they can learn in a closed environment, rather than a construction site, which could be more dangerous for someone jumping in who’s never operated a machine,” Muir says. “They can still get that time and experience regardless.”

Future outlook

When it comes to the future, Muir says autonomy is likely to become the preferred method of operation for construction and earthmoving equipment alike. He believes that popular held beliefs, such as that autonomous machines threaten the viability of a human workforce, are misplaced.

“It won’t just be artificial intelligence for the next generation of machinery, but also machine learning. Machinery is already learning from operators, so it’s clear that the cycle will ultimately tip towards autonomy in the future,” he says.

“We’re not moving towards autonomy to remove jobs. In fact, we’re finding them. Autonomy creates a lot more support roles to make sure those machines continue to operate efficiently.

“Autonomous machines will be very accurate, very efficient and won’t fatigue, which means you can operate 24/7, as long as the machine is refuelled or charged. We see large infrastructure projects in the future becoming more and more resourceful. But again, you won’t be achieving those gains if only one or two machines have iMC or are Smart Construction enabled. That’s why we’re now working with larger contractors and design engineering firms to see that these benefits are realised across the entire project site.”

Komatsu recognises that customers can be overwhelmed with the vast amount of data generated by IoT, machine learning, and AI technologies. To address this, it’s focusing on providing customers with the right information at the right time, helping them to make more informed decisions without being inundated with data.

Komatsu already has new additions and developments set to be released in 2025 to answer this call, the biggest of which being the company’s iMC 3.0, the third-generation iteration of the semi-autonomous intelligent machine control.

This new version of iMC is expected to have additional capabilities and features, further enhancing the semi-autonomous and efficient operation of Komatsu’s construction equipment.

All of this is building to what Muir says will be an inevitable, but exciting conclusion.

“I think we’re still years away from seeing the first ever, fully autonomous construction site. They’ve got to have many sensors to see underground, to avoid obstacles, to tell the difference between an animal, obstacle and a human, so there’s still many hurdles and variables to overcome,” he says.

“But that’s what drives me and us as a company every day, it’s that excitement towards potentially achieving that vision. We’ve been around for 100 years and what’s driven us for a century is building better engines, better machines and more reliable equipment.

“Our people are working side by side with our customers and the industry as we move into the next 100 years, with data and technology solutions being a key driver.”