‘We recognise the environmental impact if a hose bursts so we work to avoid that’
Kevin backs this up, saying, “The number of opportunities for a machine to stop working is enormous so to achieve that percentage is phenomenal.” All this data goes a long way in selling the benefits of proactive maintenance. It was Robbie Bentham who first saw the benefits at Banks Mining, but initially he had a point to prove. Kevin says, “You have to persuade the maintenance team that you need to spend money on a hose that on the face of it looks ok.” Andy Palmer, Banks Mining plant maintenance supervisor (left), was initially one such sceptic. Andy says, “At first I thought it would not save much time or money. But the proof of the pudding has been in the eating; it has helped us operate more safely, responsibly and efficiently – which is
what Banks is all about. It also fits very much into our development with care approach, whereby all we do is done with care for our team mates, subcontractors; neighbours and the environment.”
reports proving the concepts. “You can talk about it until you’re blue in the face but unless you’ve got something tangible to show, it’s all just words.” Now Banks Mining engineers can see the proof in the data. Proactive maintenance makes their life easier. Robbie agrees, “Through analysis of the fleet we identified a problematic asset and decided to perform a ‘controlled take down’ by aligning planned and backlog work with addressing areas in need of attention. This resulted in a major rebuild on a Caterpillar 785 dump truck with Pirtek supporting the initiative by replacing all the hoses across the entire truck. This concept, with additional support from Pirtek, has proven successful with mechanical availability and mean time between stoppages now back to an acceptable level. Obviously, this type of event is costly but it’s demonstrably worth it.”
Kevin is happy to say that Pirtek has won over the doubters, primarily due to its
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