Optimal Inspection and Preventive Maintenance Scheduling of Mining Equipment
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TECHNICAL ARTICLE—PEER-REVIEWED
Optimal Inspection and Preventive Maintenance Scheduling of Mining Equipment Enzo Angeles . Mustafa Kumral
Submitted: 21 February 2020 Ó ASM International 2020
Abstract A typical mining company has three important assets: the human labor-force, the orebody, and the equipment. Trucks, excavators, drilling machines, crushers, grinders, classifiers, and concentrators represent the equipment. Mining operations that want to take advantage of economies of scale have huge equipment fleet, and the worth of the equipment could be more than a hundred million dollars. The reliability and availability of this equipment play critical roles in increasing the efficiency and productivity of a mining operation. This paper proposes an effective maintenance management approach to be used in the mining industry such that equipment availability and reliability are improved while potential failures are prevented. Using failure data of a mining truck fleet in an open-pit Canadian mining operation, a case study is conducted in two steps. The first step focuses on determining optimal inspection intervals based on the desired reliability level in such a way as to detect potential catastrophic failures that represent considerable maintenance and downtime costs. The second step develops a preventive maintenance scheduling plan that differentiates between physical and virtual age considering the degradation of systems and their rejuvenation after each repair. The research outcomes show that the proposed approach has the potential to increase the benefit obtained from the mining equipment and can be used in mining operations. Keywords Equipment reliability Inspection interval Virtual age General renewal process
E. Angeles M. Kumral (&) Department of Mining and Materials Engineering, McGill University, 3450 University Street, Montreal, QC H3A 0E8, Canada e-mail: [email protected]
Preventive maintenance (PM) Corrective maintenance (CM) Mining industry
Introduction As the equipment is a critical asset for mining companies, an appropriate maintenance policy is necessary to ensure excellent performance. Maintenance has a direct impact on availability and reliability, which will impact the economical aspect of a mining operation by reducing costs and maximizing efficiency. Improving the traditional reactive maintenance, which involves waiting until the failure time, has become a high priority for mining companies due to its potential to reduce overall operating costs. Moreover, with larger and more complex mining equipment being produced, maintenance costs such as labor and repair expenses have increased considerably. Consequently, maintenance management has a great impact on the overall costs of mining companies by detecting or reducing the probability of potential failures and suggesting immediate actions. Maintenance management aims to maximize equipment useful life while reducing overall operating costs. Therefore, by developing a proper maintenance strategy, mining companies could avoid
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