Treatise on Truck Maintenance for Mining Operations

Bob Grossman

Fa Cai Enterprise LLC

March 22, 2015

Abstract: Truck maintenance represents a significant proportion operating costs in mine maintenance operations. Despite the large cost of truck maintenance, most management teams have given little attention to the optimization of the truck maintenance process. As the truck systems becomes more sophisticated and expensive to produce by the Original Equipment Manufacturers so has the sophistication to effectively maintain the truck systems by the end user. Given that most easy mining operations have been found and exploited and that the ore bodies that are increasing difficult to mine are left; it is vital that optimization of the truck maintenance is done. This documents highlights the types of maintenance practices used: reactive, proactive, preventative and predictive.

Introduction: Truck maintenance related costs account in the range of 20-25 percent of direct mining cost. Whilst a significant amount of energy has been dedicated to analyzing and optimizing production oriented processes and practices. Very little attention has been focused towards the optimization of the truck maintenance process and practices. Truck maintenance is a controllable cost and large cost reductions and improvements in equipment reliability, performance may be achieved through implementation of a rationalized truck maintenance approach.

The implementation of truck maintenance programs or technologies into the operational environment can involve a significant amount of change/disruption to the usual business practices and processes within the maintenance and operation groups. A strong real-time maintenance management system backed by senior management will facilitate the implementation of a truck maintenance program and reduce disruptions to maintenance and production operations.

Objective: The objective of a truck maintenance program is maintain equipment in a condition that will support the required capacity production at the lowest possible cost and at the highest safety and quality standards.

Emphasis is on the safety of people. Today truck’s size allows for no mistakes when conducting maintenance and operating practices. How the truck maintenance program maximizes capacity production is by reducing unscheduled breakdown and providing a planned maintenance schedule thus allowing for the production group to plan for equipment operation.

Capacity production can be thought of as the maximum production capability of a system under specified operating conditions. Achieved capacity production is a function of availability, utilization, and performance. The optimization of availability and utilization are the primary responsibility of the maintenance and operations groups respectively, while the optimization of equipment performance is the joint responsibility of the operations and maintenance groups.

Body: There are different types of truck maintenance approaches practiced in various parts of the world. The maintenance approach type adopted for use in any particular mine depends upon the resources of that organization. Any truck maintenance approach may cost less than another approach and should be evaluated depending on company resources. Will the truck maintenance approach support the company capacity production goals with the lowest possible cost, greatest safety and good availability.

Broadly speaking truck maintenance approaches can be classified into four classifications:

1. Reactive Maintenance
2. Preventative Maintenance
3. Predictive Maintenance
4. Proactive Maintenance

Each maintenance approach has its advantages and disadvantages and as mentioned before should be evaluated with respect to company resources and capacity production requirements.

1. Reactive maintenance (also known as "breakdown maintenance") are repairs that are done when equipment has already broken down. Reactive maintenance focuses on restoring the equipment to its normal operating condition. The broken-down equipment is returned to working within service specifications by replacing or repairing faulty parts and components.

Emergency repairs cost 3 to 9 times more than planned repairs, so maintenance plans that rely on on reactive maintenance are generally the most expensive. Breakdown maintenance is so expensive because shutdowns happen during production runs (instead of pre-scheduled maintenance shutdowns during downtimes); because expedited shipping for spare parts costs much more than regular shipping; and because maintenance staff is often forced to work overtime to repair machinery.

Advantages of Reactive Maintenance

Lower initial costs – As your systems are new, they require little maintenance so you save on parts and emergency labour.

Requires fewer staff – Complex repairs tend to be outsourced reducing the need for internal staff.

No planning needed – Technicians repair equipment when it fails. As fails are unpredictable, no time is spent planning the repairs.

Disadvantages of Reactive Maintenance

Due to the unpredictable nature of reactive maintenance, there are a number of disadvantages:

Difficult to control budgets – As equipment failures can be unpredictable, labour and spare parts may not be readily available so organizations may end up paying a premium for emergency parts shipping, travel time and out of hours support.

Shorter life expectancy of assets – Reactive maintenance does not keep the systems running in optimal “as new” condition. Over time, systems that have been maintained deteriorate faster so don’t maximize their initial capital cost investment.

Safety issues – When work is scheduled, technicians have time to review the standard procedures and safety requirements to complete the job correctly. Technicians tend to take more risks when maintenance work is reactive as they are under pressure to get systems running without delay.

Time consuming – Reactive repairs tend to take longer due to a number of factors including time to diagnose, travel time, time to pull parts from stores or emergency order, time to pull correct manuals and schematics etc.

Sporadic equipment downtime – planned maintenance can be written into the production schedule whereas unplanned repairs can happen anytime. Also, there is the uncertainty around the length of delay due to the repair.

In efficient use of resources – Technicians spend time running around looking for the correct manuals and schematics, ordering the right parts etc trying to diagnose and fix the issue.

Interferes with planned work – Emergency repairs are usually prioritized at the expense of planned work. Planned work may be pushed or cancelled completely. * Collateral Damage – A minor issue could quickly into a major system repair. If your engine is low on oil, it could result in a completely seized engine. 0 * Indirect costs – Unplanned downtime can lead to late orders if equipment cannot be returned to production in time. This can damage reputations and impact revenues. * Repeat issues – Reactive maintenance does the bare minimum to get the system up and running again. If not repaired correctly, the issue could reoccur and cause more downtime. Higher energy costs –When equipment is not properly maintained, it uses more energy. Doing simple things like greasing moving parts or changing filters can reduce energy consumption by 15%. 2. Preventative Maintenance is maintenance that is regularly performed on a piece of equipment to lessen the likelihood of it failing. Preventative maintenance is performed while the equipment is still working, so that it does not break down unexpectedly. Preventative maintenance is planned so that any required resources are available. The maintenance is scheduled based on a time or usage trigger. Advantages and Benefits of Preventative Maintenance Planning is the biggest advantage of preventative maintenance over less complex strategies. Unplanned, reactive maintenance has many overhead costs that can be avoided during the planning process. The cost of unplanned maintenance include lost production, higher costs for parts and shipping, as well as time lost responding to emergencies and diagnosing faults while equipment is not working. Unplanned maintenance typically costs three to nine times more than planned maintenance. When maintenance is planned, each of these costs can be reduced. Equipment can be shut down to coincide with production downtime. Prior to the shutdown, any required parts, supplies and personnel can be gathered to minimize the time taken for a repair. These measures decrease the total cost of the maintenance. Safety is improved because equipment breaks down less often than for less complex strategies. Disadvantages of Preventative Maintenance Unlike reactive maintenance, preventative maintenance requires maintenance planning. This requires an investment in time and resources that is not required with less complex maintenance strategies. Maintenance may occur too often with a preventative maintenance strategy. Unless, and until the maintenance frequencies are optimized for minimum maintenance, too much or too little preventative maintenance will occur. 3. Predictive Maintenance is a maintenance approach that predicts when the equipment failure might occur and to prevent that occurrence of failure by preforming the required maintenance. The task of monitoring for future failure allows maintenance to be planned before the failure occurs. Ideally, predictive maintenance allows the maintenance frequency to be as low as possible to prevent unplanned reactive maintenance, without incurring costs associated with doing too much preventative maintenance. Advantages of Predictive Maintenance Prevents the breakdown/catastrophic/premature failure. Safety, reliability and availability increases. Cost of maintenance is less. Less down time. Disadvantages of Predictive Maintenance - Requires skilled personnel. Requires costly monitoring equipment. Requires a change in a thinking paradigm for maintenance personnel 4. Proactive Maintenance is a preventive maintenance strategy for maintaining the reliability of machines or equipment. The purpose of proactive maintenance is to view machine failure and similar problems as something that can be anticipated and dealt with before they occur.

Proactive maintenance consists of:

Preventive maintenance Predictive maintenance Proactive maintenance focuses primarily on determining the root causes of machine failure, and dealing with those issues before problems occur. It is often seen as a cost-effective practice since it allows a company to avoid machine failure and solves issues before they become problems. Advantages of Proactive Maintenance Early problem detection using proactive systems management tools to monitor truck performance can detect equipment failure before catastrophic component or systems failure. Proactive systems constantly monitor critical equipment components for problems and report to a centralized control center. Maintenance personnel do not have to wait for a user to report a problem with the truck develop a reactive strategy to fix the issue because the constant monitoring of a proactive system actively looks for issues to solve. This leads to more rapid response times to network, software and hardware problems, which reduces the amount of time any machine might be inoperable for repair.