AFRICA news
Weir Minerals’ flexibility in its range of maintenance solutions allows each
mining customer to choose the most effective maintenance strategy for its
particular conditions.
The company’s maintenance solutions include a cost-per-tonne
model, which allows mines to budget a set premium for a predetermined
production rate; and a repair-and-exchange model, where the OEM keeps
key stock related to the specific customer’s requirements, enabling it to
supply long lead time items in just a few hours.
According to Weir Minerals regional services manager, Kobus Fourie,
OEM involvement in ongoing plant maintenance can help to increase
reliability, which reduces maintenance costs in the long term.
“Through our service capacity, OEMs are playing an increasingly
important role in mining,” he says. “We can do this because our
knowledge base — earned through extensive and ongoing investment in
research and development — is well established. The benefits of having
an OEM maintain their own equipment far outweighs the costs, especially
if you take into account the indirect cost of downtime due to the more
frequent breakdowns often resulting from the use of a non-OEM part,
for example.”
Fourie also emphasises the safety aspect of good maintenance
strategies, although he acknowledges that applying a long-term approach
to maintenance is not always easy in the mining sector, as volatility in
commodity prices creates uncertainty around the life-of-mine expectations
at many operations.
“A more stable outlook allows mines to make better decisions about
investing in the longevity of their critical-path plant and equipment,” he
says. “Nonetheless, the key differentiator among mining competitors is a
systematic approach to maintenance that can be applied irrespective of the
prevailing economic climate.”
Weir Minerals has joined forces with Dell and Microsoft to develop
condition monitoring for preventive maintenance, eventually allowing the
OEM to predict equipment failure intervention before such failure occurs,
avoiding downtime and minimising costs.
Weir offers flexible maintenance solutions
Kobus Fourie, regional service manager at Weir Minerals Africa.