Digging Up Results
For this issue's theme of Digging Up Results, maintenance in the mining industry was an easy target to focus on. After all, if something can't be grown, it has to be mined. The mining industry faces s...
November 1, 2007 | By Bill Roebuck, Editor & Associate Publisher
For this issue’s theme of Digging Up Results, maintenance in the mining industry was an easy target to focus on. After all, if something can’t be grown, it has to be mined. The mining industry faces some of the toughest maintenance challenges: big equipment, powerful machinery, gruelling hours of operation, and tough working conditions for both man and machine.
Three stories in particular take a look at maintenance successes in mining. There’s one about a remote gold mine far from the power grid that uses diesel generators to power everything from pumps to conveyors, and hasn’t yet faced a shutdown because of a power loss. Another looks at how training mobile equipment operators using simulators significantly reduces reactive maintenance at North America’s largest copper mine. A third examines how a bearing manufacturer helped an equipment component supplier more than double the service life of mining equipment by specially developing a tougher spherical roller bearing cartridge that overcame a design problem in the original equipment.
Our award-winning contributing editor, Montreal-based Carroll McCormick, certainly dug up a great story when he profiled a maintenance manager and a plant engineer who must work closely together developing and maintaining specially-adapted machinery to process seaweed in Cornwallis, N.S. Even local contractors come up with ideas and innovations to help them with their challenging problems, not the least of which is figuring out how the different disciplines can get along.
Technical features in this issue include a guide to troubleshooting vane pumps and motors, where we learn that this equipment’s dirty little secret is simply dirty hydraulic fluid. Next, two features on belt drives explain why polyurethane V-belts can perform better than rubber in tough HVAC drive applications, and how synchronous belt drives can produce significant energy savings that make payback quick, despite their higher initial cost compared to standard V-belt drives.
Of course, our regular columnists continue their series of articles, with Peter Phillips explaining the benefits of using a CMMS for more than just maintenance tasks, Len Middleton showing how you can more easily get approvals for needed maintenance and engineering expenditures in The Business of Maintenance, and Simon Fridlyand delving into the intricacies of Safety Integrity Levels (SILs) and the role maintenance plays in equipment safety.
Maintenance Management columnist Cliff Williams also continues his long-running analysis of how the fictitious Plentya Paper Company learns to apply world-class maintenance techniques step-by-step. Here, the maintenance manager figures out how to get more out of his team, and learns about the Platinum Rule and Situational Management.
As well, this issue has 45 write-ups on new products, systems, components and accessories for MRO applications in our Product News and Spotlight sections, with in-depth looks at belt drives, fluid power, compressors and casters.
I hope you find an interesting and appealing mix of stories within and come away with at least one or two ideas you can use in your own operations.