Hillhouse Quarry Group has a longstanding relationship with Finning, spanning more than 25 years. The company operates a large Cat fleet of both new and rebuilt machines including wheel loaders, excavators, and off-highway trucks. Their recent purchase of two of the latest Cat 772G trucks together with a 95-tonne Cat 395 excavator will ensure faster cycle times from quarry face to crusher.

John Stuart, territory account manager at Finning, said: “Hillhouse wanted to make their quarry operations more productive. They already have a proactive fleet management program, so when their existing Cat 390 excavator was due for replacement, we took the opportunity to look at the fleet.

“In doing so we were able to recommend replacing their larger Cat 775 Cat dump truck for two smaller Cat 772G’s enabling them to increase the speed of unloading and mean they could manoeuvre more easily around the site and easing congestion at the crusher. This increase in efficiency also meant they were burning less fuel so making financial and environmental savings at the same time.”

Due to the harsh nature of the rock quarry at Troon, the excavator needed to have a severe duty bucket attachment and screen guard, while the Cat 772G’s were fitted with a heavy-duty spec including steel liners. The Cat 772G, as well as being quicker and more efficient, also emits up to 17% less CO2 than the previous model and has an updated traction control system increasing performance and productivity.

All the machines supplied come with a Finning five-year warranty that includes remote asset monitoring to identify any maintenance requirements between standard service intervals to ensure any costly downtime is minimised.

John added: “We have expert Cat-certified engineers local to Troon which means we’re on site daily to provide support to Hillhouse. In addition, as we have a branch in Glasgow open six days a week, we can offer great backup for parts and service to Hillhouse Group and our other customers in central Scotland. Together with our other branches in Inverness and Aberdeen, this means we also offer excellent support to our customers outside the central belt too.”

Alistair McGowan, operations director at Hillhouse Group, said they valued the robustness of Cat machines and the good level of support Finning can provide.

He added: “We have older machines on site which have been here for years, as we’ve always had Cat machines because of their reliability, efficiency, and technology.

“We’re always looking at ways to evolve our business and it’s reassuring to know we can rely on the support and service from Finning, and they couldn’t be more helpful. Downtime is a huge issue for us being such a large operation, so the reliability of the machines and the service the Finning engineers offer really comes into play because it is business critical.

“These latest machines have advanced a lot from the ones we had so they’ll be a big change for our operators, but our Cat machines are prime movers in our quarry and key to our production.”