There is more to Kaunis Iron than the newly re-started iron ore mine, the company is in fact taking a position as the biggest haulage company in Norrbotten.
With the help of twenty-five Volvo FH16 750, the 90-tonners are rolling a distance equivalent to round the world 257 times every year.
From the open pit mine in Kaunisvaara, near Pajala in Norrbotten County, 2,000,000 tonnes of iron ore are transported by truck for reloading onto trains for further transport by ship from Narvik harbour in Norway. The comparison with 257 times round the world makes clear the challenge this presents. Every truck drives an average of over 360,000 km a year.
“This kind of challenge calls for high-performance trucks that are able to deliver every day, round-the-clock and year in, year out. The trucks from Volvo match all our expectations,” says Per-Erik Lindvall, CEO of Kaunis Iron.
Kaunis Iron’s fleet of trucks, operating in the sister company Malmtransport Norr, works in an extreme climate for most of the year. We can have warm summer days, and sub-zero temperatures down to 30°C occur in winter, which demands extra high performance demands of the powertrain, chassis and superstructure. The logistics must never break down and we attach great importance to an unbroken flow.
“We are responsible for the trucks’ functioning without production breakdowns, and Kaunis Iron pays for a quantity of effective transport mileage, which means that we have had to think innovatively around the business model,” says Mats Karlsson Ek, CEO of Wist Last & Buss, the retailer for Volvo Lastvagnar in northern Sweden.
One circuit is 320 km and at the halfway point there is a workshop managed by Wist Last & Buss, which takes care of all the usual maintenance jobs. All the vehicles are delivered with a service agreement which gives security in that all service is carried out according to an agreed plan, which strengthens reliability and security in the delivery chain.
The fuel is a big item in transport costs, and it is among the duties of the traffic managers to also coach the drivers in economic driving with the help of Dynafleet.
“The vehicles are already shown good performance, even though we have not begun to tweak all the parameters. For example, we have not yet begun active coaching of the drivers in how to further reduce consumption,” says Peter Bohm, CEO of Malmtransport Norr.
Watch the film: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hjI56baWe64&list=UU12KZh41OJtHSgjLBv5Od3Q
Fact:
Kaunis Iron started iron ore extraction in Kaunisvaara in summer 2018.
Number of FH16 750: 25 constantly ready for operation. ¨
Total number of vehicles: 28.
Maximum load: 63 tonnes per vehicle
Extraction and transportation days: 365 per year
Number of drivers: 125
Total transport volume: 2 m tonnes per year
Number of kilometres driven per year: 10,285,710
