Brazil Mining 2011 - GBR

BRAZIL MINING
major mining sites, conducting maintenance and training
activities. “Sotreq’s mining division is very keen on the TCO
concept whereby we minimize the total cost of ownership for
our customers,” said Marcello Ribeiro, managing director of
Caterpillar supplier Sotreq’s mining division. “Sotreq’s fundamental
concept is to maintain the machines we sell with a high
level of availability, in the long term we benchmark at between
85% and 90% availability for our customers. We obviously
have to have some downtime for maintenance however, the
whole business is geared up toward ensuring the minimum
downtime and maximum efficiency usage for our customers.
This is best demonstrated by the near 1,000 employees we
have distributed throughout our customers’ operational sites
providing maintenance, training and logistics, 24 hours a day,
seven days per week, as well as various other services.”
The support service focused-nature of the Brazilian mining
market’s heavy capital goods equipment supply industry has
led to numerous technological innovations. Sotreq uses satellite
technology in order to monitor its machines’ performance
on respective mine sites throughout the country; Volvo supply
agent Tracbel, has developed its own software platform in
order to improve the company’s service offering. “Tracbel
Volvo uses a software package called Matrix, which manages
our machines’ operations, allowing us to follow our operators
and track efficiency,” said Tracbel Vice President Luiz
Gustavo Rocha. “For example, with MMX we take care of their
machines in terms of maintenance and productivity, ensuring
they work 90% to 92% of their capacity per week at the lowest
possible fuel consumption. Our engineers are always situated
at our customers’ mine sites, supporting the operations
in terms of technical assistance and maintenance.”
The increased emphasis on additional services extends to
multinational firms operating in Brazil. Swedish company
Scania, which has been present in Brazil for more than 50
years, is gearing its operation toward the provision of more
services, according to General Director Marcos Cesar Arantes.
“In the next five years, Scania intends to develop its services’
segment in order to provide the best possible solutions for our
clients. Scania offers to its clients in Brazil the same level of
service and training that you would find in Europe. This is the
Ferrous’ ambition is to become the world’s fifth largest iron ore producer by 2015. (Photo
courtesy of Ferrous)
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JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2011 • E&MJ 85