The undercarriage of tracked machines takes the brunt of abuse on harsh job sites, but the undercarriage has to be in good working order to keep the machine on the job. Damage to the undercarriage can be expensive, so proactively monitoring, maintaining, and addressing undercarriage damage and wear promptly can have a big impact on your maintenance costs and downtime.
CASE Construction Equipment has introduced CASE TrackCare, an undercarriage monitoring program that collects undercarriage measurements and field observations and then converts this data into actionable information. Dealership technicians are experts on not only CASE machines, but often other manufacturers' machines as well.
CASE TrackCare can be used to monitor every tracked machine in a mixed fleet, including compact track loaders, dozers, compact and mini excavators, and full-size excavators, providing easy data all in one place.
This cloud-based system with mobile app gives dealers and customers the ability to predict when undercarriage components will wear out so that they can undertake proactive maintenance steps to keep equipment in operation and maintenance costs down.
CASE TrackCare analyzes the measurements and wear rates of key undercarriage components including links, bushings, grouser, idler, sprockets, carrier and bottom rollers, along with track sag. An inspector can take pictures of the components and include that information with the report for the machine owner.
The fleet owner doesn't need to install anything on the machine. Instead, machines are added to the TrackCare portal and an inspection frequency is determined. CASE dealers use ultrasonic measuring tools to view information in the CASE TrackCare app. Once the measurement is in the app, the algorithm calculates wear compared to the manufacturer's specifications of the machine and the CASE dealer inspector can review the report with the customer. The CASE dealer pays the subscription fee, and there is no additional cost to the customer.
According to Tim Hansen, product marketing manager for Undercarriage and G.E.T products for CASE Construction Equipment, "Undercarriage maintenance typically accounts for about 50 percent of a machine's total lifetime maintenance costs, underlining the importance of tools like CASE TrackCare to preemptively identify undercarriage parts needing attention before conditions worsen and costs rise."
