Abstract
M. Ing.
Most companies in the modern capitalist world are driven by profitability. Since these companies compete with each other, there will always be a drive to minimise the costs of the company. The South African mining industry is no exception. Preventive maintenance and downtime of equipment are some of the biggest contributories to costs within the mining industry. In their efforts to achieve minimal downtime engineers have developed many maintenance strategies throughout history, but with the advent of the low cost computer systems, it has revolutionised the maintenance industry. Maintenance systems were developed extensively for equipment with low or no redundancy and high consequence of failure in the 60s, by military institutions on equipment such as aeroplanes. These systems coupled with the autonomy of computer capabilities evolved into maintenance driven software. These systems have filtered through to the mining industry in South Africa in the past ten years and are used widespread by the bigger mining houses. Stockholding practises have also improved substantially as consequence of widespread computer usage. Best practises are developed for industries such as fast moving consumer goods. The base of knowledge developed in these industries is also adopted by the mining industry in recent times. This thesis aims firstly to explain the fundamentals of reliability engineering and how these fundamentals are practically implemented through a predictive maintenance program and computer aided management systems in the industry. Then further aims to use the information gathered through these systems and consolidate it with accurate stockholding procedures into a critical spare evaluation strategy. Since the South African mining industry has increased its dependency on global equipment, they have also left themselves exposed to the logistics of obtaining services and spares regarding this equipment. Critical parts evaluation is not common practice within the mining industry but the risks and consequence of failure have prompted more research and the need for a strategy.