Abstract
M.Phil. (Engineering Management)
The mining industry is faced with declining profits due to the fall of commodity pricing in recent years. The decline in profits resulted in mining companies looking for ways to reduce operational costs especially relating to heavy mining equipment maintenance costs in order to gain a competitive advantage. Diversified miners such as the Anglo American Group have sold loss making assets in efforts to sustain the business.
Mogalakwena Mine is the largest open-pit platinum mine in the world. The mine has the largest population of dump trucks in the platinum market and has experienced an increase in equipment failure. The purpose of this research is to investigation the nature and cause of failures in the dump trucks using the Komatsu 930E Series as the population over a 24-month period. The objective of this research is to determine the international best practices in maintenance that can assist in the optimisation of equipment life and reduce the cost of maintenance. This research is a case study that uses the full population of trucks to investigate applied maintenance strategies in Mogalakwena Mine. In addition, a framework of FMECA is used to determine the criticality of common failures.
The research study reviews literature on maintenance strategies and its approaches. The theory around preventive maintenance, corrective maintenance, predictive maintenance and reliability-centred maintenance is also reviewed. Furthermore, the concept of reliability, reliability parameters and reliability analysis is evaluated placing emphasis on the methods used to conduct reliability analysis on mining equipment.
The results from the research study show a significant increase in downtime and unscheduled maintenance although machine availability remains within acceptable the level set by the mine. Further to this, preventive maintenance, corrective maintenance and condition-based maintenance strategies are been utilised by the mine.