HEAVY ENGINEERING AND WEAR PARTS
Closing the gap: The crusher maintenance shift
As the skilled trades shortage tightens its grip on mining operations globally, one of the industry’ s most expensive vulnerabilities sits at the heart of every primary crushing circuit, Dustin Broadbent, Services Manager, Crushing & Grinding at FLS, says. IM put some questions to Broadbent about what poor maintenance really costs – and what a new generation of safer change-out systems, digital monitoring and structured knowledge transfer can do about it.
While mines are actively trying to hire experienced trades, the pool of crusher-competent talent is simply not keeping pace with demand. Remote locations, roster schedules and an ageing workforce compound the broader skilled trades squeeze that is now well documented across the sector. Broadbent said:“ The effect shows up in a predictable way: repairs are completed under increasing pressure and with constrained resources. Even experienced teams can find it difficult to maintain full attention to the details as they are often pulled in multiple directions to close the experience gap on site. This translates directly into performance and reliability – tolerances, torque, lubrication cleanliness, hydraulic system integrity, assembly sequencing – are the ones most vulnerable to gaps when crews are strained, knowledge is thin and turnover is high. Many mines invest heavily in OEM training, yet Broadbent sees many repeat the same courses year after year with new faces on the same sites because turnover plays havoc with the capability base.
The effects of under-resourced maintenance tend to surface in patterns FLS sees at sites around the world: chronic oil leaks that go un-investigated rather than addressed; loose or missing bolts and temporary fixes that are anything but temporary; dirty hydraulics and contaminated lube systems; unkept grease systems and inconsistent regreasing overall; and guarding or access that makes routine inspections anything but routine, often becoming more complex than the task that needs to be performed.
“ For crushing circuits, the consequences are amplified by the design and operating philosophy: many plants can continue at reduced capacity with a grinding mill offline, but a primary crusher down is frequently an immediate production stop,” Broadbent said.“ Reactive maintenance stacks costs quickly – and the hidden price is often not the repair time itself, but the waiting time: lockout / tagout coordination, access preparation, lifting plans, parts chasing, troubleshooting, rework and collateral damage.”
Rethinking the uptime conversation
The most productive uptime conversations in crushing don’ t begin with maintenance; they begin with operating philosophy.
A properly operated crusher typically carries materially lower maintenance costs. What often presents as a maintenance problem frequently traces back to operational root causes: feed presentation, ore level in the chamber, tramp management, liner strategy, lubrication cleanliness and daily inspection habits.
In practice, the conversation with mining clients tends to converge on three practical levers:
• Preventative maintenance as a production strategy: It is important to recognise that preventive maintenance can’ t be optional or treated as a nice-to-have if the mine wants stable throughput. The mine team links this strategy directly to known upstream initiators of critical risk, which drive failure modes that stop the plant, which degrade capacity and which create unmitigated safety risk for personnel to potentially be in the line of fire.
• Availability as a non-negotiable: When crushers go down, operations can’ t wait for normal business hours. The expectation today is straightforward – be available. Whether that means on-site capability, rapid dispatch, remote support, or a service agreement with defined response times, crushing forces the issue.
• Structured capability building: One of the simplest outcomes that can be driven for an operation is taking a crew from basic component identification to a team capable of safely and competently executing the majority of crusher maintenance tasks. In one case at a large Canadian gold operation, a structured two-year program – combining hands-on rebuild
A properly operated crusher typically carries materially lower maintenance costs, according to FLS
support, repeatable procedures and coaching during live shutdowns – moved the crew from reactive firefighting to confident shutdown planning. The most significant return was not just fewer delays; it was better day-to-day decision making and faster response to unplanned events.
A step change in primary gyratory maintenance
Among the most significant recent developments in crusher maintenance practice is the move towards safer, more efficient liner change systems – particularly in primary gyratory applications.
“ The adoption of rotable shell and rotable top shell concepts is shifting what has historically been one of the most time consuming and hazardous activities in a crushing circuit: concave replacement,” Broadbent said.“ These systems allow pre-relined shell segments to be swapped out with less time required inside the crusher, moving a significant portion of the work into a more controlled environment.”
Concave replacement is a task where every detail matters: access, rigging, fit-up discipline, torque practice, liner seating and final inspection. Bringing more of that work into a safer, bettercontrolled workflow improves both outcomes and repeatability. When these change-outs are planned properly and guided by experienced field service teams, operations can complete the work materially faster while improving quality control.
“ The benefit is direct and measurable: less exposure, less downtime, fewer rework events, and more predictable shutdown planning,” Broadbent said
Digital insights
Digital tools in crushing are evolving from passive dashboards towards actionable maintenance intelligence – and the shift is happening in layers.
Condition monitoring on the assets that fail expensively – tracking vibration, temperature, pressure, oil condition, and lubrication and hydraulic health signals – is increasingly being captured through plant systems or retrofit sensors, then trended over time to catch problems early.“ The objective is straightforward: identify abnormal patterns before they become shutdown events,” Broadbent said.“ Remote monitoring capability
International Mining | JUNE 2026