CUBIQ Explained: How Finning is Advancing Heavy Construction and Mining Operations

CUBIQ is so much more than a software package that uses machine-monitoring technology to collect data and summarize reports. CUBIQ is an operational goal-setting program that helps heavy construction and mining operations make more informed decisions about how to utilize their equipment on a project site.

What sets CUBIQ apart from other machine-monitoring systems is that it includes the personalized guidance from Finning heavy equipment and industry experts. CUBIQ is where we at Finning combine our expertise in heavy equipment and technology, our experience managing fleets within the construction and mining industries, and our intelligence in job site productivity and performance. What CUBIQ delivers is a personalized and scalable program that will collect the data and visibility you need to meet your specific operational goals.

Before CUBIQ can collect data across your entire heavy construction or mining operation that you can access in near real-time, our team of industry, equipment, and technology experts begin a personalized relationship-building process to earn your trust as a true operational partner. Once established, we’ll be able to help you make faster, more informed decisions about how your equipment is being utilized on your project site:

Phase 1: Our CUBIQ team of Finning industry, equipment, and technology experts take the time to understand your operational goals.

Phase 2: We define your key performance indicators (KPIs) based on industry-proven benchmarks.

Phase 3: We propose specific software, equipment, and processes that will meet your performance metrics.

Phase 4: We develop and deploy your personalized CUBIQ system by installing robust software, migrating existing data, procuring modern equipment, and introducing targeted processes across your operation.

Phase 5: We collect and analyze the aggregate data into operational intelligence, and measure them against your KPIs.

Phase 6: We relentlessly identify areas for improvement and recommend action-driven solutions.

After learning about CUBIQ and what sets it apart from other machine-monitoring software, you’ll recognize the long-term value that the Finning team of industry, equipment, and technology experts bring as a partner in the digital transformation of your operation. CUBIQ incorporates over 90 years of knowledge, experience, and intelligence that only Finning can deliver within the heavy construction and mining industries, to personalize a centralized, operational system that meets all your productivity, sustainability, and safety goals.

This is why we begin every CUBIQ customer journey by taking the time to understand your operational goals. Do you have sustainability or safety benchmarks that your mining operation needs to meet to remain compliant with industry regulations? Are there productivity targets and timelines that your construction project needs to achieve to maintain profitability? How much do you want to save on your monthly fuel and oils costs?

The CUBIQ team at Finning includes industry and heavy equipment experts who specialize in machine productivity, fleet management, fluids, service and repair, and equipment technology. This allows us to offer you a 360-degree view of how your equipment is being utilized currently across your project site, so we can identify ways to improve your operation with action-driven recommendations.

This involves our team asking you questions about your operation that you may not have a clear answer for, and uncovering blind spots in your processes that you may not consider relevant. This is why we share our experience and intelligence with equipment utilization on hundreds of other large-scale construction and mining projects so that we can earn your trust as your operational partner. This is how we remain accountable to you as well, in our pursuit to truly understand your business, so we can share the responsibility of achieving your operational goals together.

Once we understand what your operational goals are, we can begin defining the specific key performance indicators (KPIs) that you need to track. At this stage, we leverage our expertise in heavy machinery over 90 years of construction and mining project experience to set realistic, industry-proven benchmarks that we will help you achieve.

As your operational partner, we are accountable for the KPIs and benchmarks we set. We know what metrics we need to collect in order to gain as much visibility and clarity into how your equipment is being used on a heavy construction site or mining operation. We help identify the challenges that will impact your project’s profitability, and help define what intelligence we’ll need to collect in order to explore the root causes that require correction.

Equally as important at this stage is making sure our CUBIQ customers acknowledge the challenges and blind spots that exist in their current operation, and that they are committed to adapting their software, equipment, and processes to capture these new intelligence metrics. This is a pivotal moment in our partnership, so that we may truly understand each other and the importance of our roles, working together toward common goals.

Within our CUBIQ team, we provide access to our Finning dealership network that can recommend and provide a full range of Cat® equipment available to lease or rent, with service experts that will help you maintain your fleet with service support, parts, and consumables. And our recommended solutions aren’t only applicable to Cat equipment or to proprietary Finning technology. In fact, we’re able to utilize any third-party technology across any mixed fleet of equipment. This ensures you receive complete visibility across your entire operation, and that the data we collect and the intelligent insight we uncover is consistent across every machine in your fleet and accessible all in one centralized database.

We also migrate existing data from your previously siloed and departmental stand-alone legacy systems, ensuring you have complete visibility across your organization, fully accessible in a single, centralized database in near real-time. Implementing CUBIQ’s personalized, centralized database completes the digital transformation of your heavy construction or mining operation, with the flexibility to scale with your business as your objectives grow and evolve.

One of the added benefits to the CUBIQ software and its functionality is its ability to access and filter intelligence, all from a single, centralized database that is easily accessible at any time. This means you no longer have to wait for different stand-alone programs to pull up month-end reports that are already outdated by the time you receive them. With CUBIQ, you can observe the way your equipment is being utilized as it happens throughout the day, allowing your operational team to make immediate, proactive, more informed decisions that will improve productivity, performance, and profitability in near real-time.

This is where our Finning team of industry, equipment, and technology experts are able to analyze the aggregate data and consolidate it into intelligence, to help make action-driven recommendations on what the root causes of any deviation from the KPIs may be. It could be that the articulated trucks are idling longer than expected, which could be related to the excavators not meeting their expected payload capacity with each haul, which decreases your operations load haul productivity, which could be attributed to the wrong size excavators or attachments being used, or that the excavators may be leaking or burning too much hydraulic fluid, or that the operators need more training.

By capturing machine-monitoring data points across your entire fleet in near real-time and having them immediately accessible in a single, centralized place, you now have visibility and insight into new layers of operational inefficiencies that may be occurring, allowing you to make informed and proactive decisions. Simply based on the anecdotal scenario provided in the paragraph above, by being able to see that the idling time on one of your articulated trucks is underperforming to your KPIs, you’re now able to see how it’s affecting your fuel consumption and sustainability goals, your load haul productivity, your fleet scheduling and servicing intervals, and your equipment operator performance and materials management across your entire operation.

And by being accountable to your KPIs as a true operational partner, our CUBIQ team works with you throughout the life of your project, relentlessly finding new ways to collect and track accurate data, analyzing and consolidating it into intelligence, and recommending informed and action-driven decisions that will improve your heavy construction or mining operation’s productivity, performance, sustainability, safety, and profitability goals.

Finning is the world's largest Caterpillar dealer, selling, renting and providing parts and service for equipment and engines to customers across diverse industries, including mining, construction, petroleum, forestry and a wide range of power systems applications. We operate in Western Canada, South America, and UK and Ireland.