MINING IN FOCUS
MINING IN FOCUS
GENUINE PARTS
MEAN GUARANTEED
RESULTS
Using pirate parts in crushing and screening
equipment could cost a company in the
long run, writes Emile Naude and
Jacques Erasmus.
I
t goes without saying that everyone loves a short-term gain. This is
especially true in the current economic climate where everyone is
trying to shave a bit from their operating expenses. An easy mark,
for any company, would seem to be saving on spares, wears and
replacement parts. Finding generic suppliers for copied parts and
consumables you use on your crushing and screening machines is not
diffi cult, but it could cost you a lot in the long run.
The abundance of pirate parts and knock-off manufacturers is not a new
phenomenon and is certainly not limited to any specifi c industry. We
constantly see companies trying to save a little cash by buying pirate
parts. This happens in all industries. As soon as you release a new machine,
someone out there is going to reverse engineer it and start selling parts.
There is a misconception that these parts are just as good as the originals
and, due to the price-point, a signifi cant saving can be made. It must,
however, be remembered that the original manufacturer spent millions on
resources, research and development, testing and market research, while
the pirate versions are simply copied imitations.
Wear on machines
As an example, one needs to simply look at one facet of the business: the
wear-items on a machine. We look at liners and the process of getting the
manufacturing process absolutely perfect. To ensure your quality is correct,
you have to put it through its paces. Essentially, you manufacture the liner
along with the machine design and put those liners through a set of tests,
testing the tensile strength, manganese content and gauging its failure
point and maximum production levels so that the customer has peace of
mind while working within defi ned parameters.
Once you have your design and process in place, you will start casting
your liners and ensure that there is continual testing and evaluation of the
product, to ensure that the quality of the part and the end-product remains
the same. Pirate manufacturers don’t have the same stringent checks,
knowledge of the machine design and production performance in place,
and the liners fail and wear out far quicker or adversely aff ect the machine
performance.
In addition to the technical expertise required, the cast liners use stringent
metallurgical guidelines that need to be followed. To cast a specifi c liner,
weighing 2135kg, one needs to use approximately 2900kg of liquid metal.
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African Mining November 2019
40
African Mining November 2019
www. africanmining.co.za