Gulf Construction Online - Caterpillar challenges both man and machine

UAE Focus

The Malaga challenge ... tough competition.

Caterpillar challenges both man and machine

01 December 2006

Amidst clouds of dust, the noise of many powerful engines echoed across a Spanish hillside during the first week of October, as millions of dollars worth of earthmoving equipment was put through its paces in what has become an annual fixture on the European construction industry calendar.

Every year since 1998, Caterpillar has invited the most skilled machine operators across Europe, Africa and Middle East to compete for the title of Best Operator in the Caterpillar Operator Challenge, billed as “the Toughest Competition on Earth”, in Malaga in southern Spain.
It has been described as the Grand Prix of the earthmoving equipment sector, but in truth the Caterpillar Operator Challenge is more of a decathlon, requiring competitors to show skills across a wide range of disciplines in 10 separate events.
From the power of a D8 track-type tractor or a large wheeled loader to the less imposing presence of a mini-excavator, the machines in use in the various events are designed to test the skill and versatility of the competitors, with tasks to measure both speed and precision of operation.
Operators participating in these finals have qualified through local and national events organised by Cat dealers. This year several thousand operators competed at the regional events, with just short of 60 making it through to the final of the ninth Operator Challenge, which was staged from October 2 to 6.
The competition was started principally for European operators, and every year adds new countries as the map of Europe is modified in the wake of the break-up of the Soviet Union and various of its satellite states.
The past three events have had a Gulf participation, through the efforts of Mohammed Abdulrahman Al-Bahar, Caterpillar dealer throughout most of the GCC states, and this year’s event also saw two competitors from Mongolia receiving a warm welcome from the other teams during the initial briefing at Caterpillar’s Malaga Demonstration and Learning Centre.
The Caterpillar site is spread across a hillside a few kilometres from Torremolinos, beneath the flight path of nearby Malaga airport. Its 89 hectares provide ample room for training and demonstration of every type of machine, on the flat and on steep slopes. Facilities include an impressive auditorium, several classrooms and a hilltop cafeteria large enough to seat the competitors, their dealer support teams, a press contingent and Caterpillar’s own staff. Apart from the equipment being used in the competition, there was an impressive and varied fleet of other machines on site, including a massive D11 dozer.
The UAE was represented by Pervez Akhtar, an operator of many years experience with Al Marwan Contracting, one of the biggest contracting companies in Sharjah. Across its several divisions, the company runs a large fleet of heavy and light machinery, including earthmoving equipment, cranes, asphalt-laying equipment, bulldozers, hydraulic excavators, heavy articulated trucks, dumper trucks etc.
Akhtar estimates that the company has something in the region of 700 pieces of construction equipment, so it was no small achievement to have been selected as the firm's champion in the local heats organised by Al-Bahar's UAE office, where a podium finish saw him qualify as the UAE's representative in this truly international competition.
He was accompanied to the competition by two executives from Al-Bahar's Sharjah office. Manal Rateb, a marketing specialist, and Ahmed El Gammal, a senior sales engineer, had travelled from Sharjah to give Akhtar moral and practical support and to meet their counterparts from other Cat dealers.
In Malaga, Akhtar was up against very stiff competition, including not only 20 former competitors but also two past winners of the event. To-date the Challenge has been dominated by north Europeans, with the first four years seeing victories by two Finns and a Norwegian, and every subsequent competition won by a Dutchman. In fact, Ton Verdam of the Netherlands has scored a hat-trick, taking the title in successive years from 2002 to 2004.
Great emphasis is placed on safety – both during the various briefings and during the events themselves – with significant penalties for any safety infraction, from failing to fasten a safety belt to careless mounting and dismounting of the machines. The message is clear – the safety of you and your workmates is vital in both human and economic terms.
The well-being of the machines themselves is also stressed, and any techniques, which might damage the equipment, are forbidden and subject to penalty points. For example, in the wheel loader events any competitor spilling rocks from his bucket and then driving over them incurs penalties in recognition of the fact that tyres are expensive items and not to be damaged by careless and sloppy operation.
The competition is clearly designed to promote the Caterpillar brand, but it also serves to remind contractors of the importance of ensuring that their operators have adequate training and experience. Al-Bahar’s El Gammal reckons that the difference in productivity between an expert operator and a less skilled one may be as much as 25 per cent, which in the case of a large wheeled loader operating in a quarry might represent a difference of more than 200 tonnes per hour.
For some of the participants, the event also provided an opportunity to get their first taste of GPS-controlled earthmoving. The D8 dozer was fitted with a GPS system which allows the operator to hand over control of the blade to the computer during the final passes of cutting a slot. The required depth of the slot is entered at the start of the job and once the dozer is down to with 20 cm of the desired level, the operator can engage the automatic system, which will control the blade for precise finishing of the cut.
This is still new technology, but there are already a few GPS-equipped machines at work in the UAE, and Al-Bahar engineers will be happy to describe the operation and benefits of the new equipment to potential customers.
Other tasks in the competition required the operators to work with equipment including a hydraulic excavator with grab, a backhoe loader, an articulated truck, a wheeled excavator and a mini excavator. Also included in this year's tests was a theoretical test that checked skills such as correct tip selection for excavator buckets.
After the competitions were over, on the final day the team at Caterpillar’s Malaga Demonstration and Learning Centre put on an impressive two-hour General Line Demonstration of a big range of machines showcasing the latest in Caterpillar’s impressive product line along with practical information for operators in improving site safety and productivity. On this day, the Caterpillar also invited the wives and children of the operators to see for themselves not just the machines but also how their loved ones were safe and comfortable when operating their Caterpillar machines thanks to the pioneering work by Caterpillar in ‘human engineering’.
At the end of the week it was confirmed that when it comes to earthmoving skills, the Dutch and the Scandinavians still have an edge over their other European, African and Middle Eastern counterparts. Peter Van Schaik of the Netherlands won the ninth annual Caterpillar Operator Challenge competition – for the second year in a row – followed by Per Erik Johansson from Sweden and Denmark’s Soren Markussen.
The event was rounded off by a gala dinner where amongst the fun and festivities awards were presented to the top three, the winners in individual machine categories, the winning team and the winning country team – Sweden.
Sharjah’s Akhtar did demonstrate his skills in the excavator events, but was not able to maintain a high enough score across the range of disciplines to rank highly in the final placing. However, with the benefit of a week exchanging tips with the other competitors and watching them at work, he doubtless returned to Sharjah with enhanced skills and experience.