Coal Age

MAR 2018

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40 www.coalage.com March 2018 operating ideas continued utilization rates well in excess of 75%. This is world-class performance in our indus- try. Across Rio Tinto, we have seen an in- crease of approximately 7% on an indexed basis in 2017. We are aiming for all of our sites to achieve 75% and at our autono- mous sites, we are targeting levels much higher than this." He pointed out that the company has streamlined the 150-200 changeovers each day at Oyu Tolgoi with a simple platform. Drivers walk straight in and out of the cab without having to ascend or descend the stairs on the trucks, greatly reducing the safety risk and cutting precious minutes from each changeover. Rio Tinto's other sites are expected to adopt this system. He also revealed that Rio Tinto's Bing- ham Canyon copper mine in Utah is sus- tainably achieving results of more than 140 hours MTBF (Mean Time Between Failures) for its haulage fleet, and the com- pany is replicating this work across the group as well. "In short, we are targeting to lift our effective utilization by more than 10% and this could equate to a further 280 million mt of potential capacity simply by improv- ing what we are doing now with the equip- ment we have now," said Atkinson. Chris Salisbury, chief executive–iron ore, explained that his group is discovering and replicating leading practices, including how it uses the haul fleet and plant, and how best to reduce capital and operating costs. By the end of October, said Salis- bury, "…through better truck utilization, we managed to park-up around 40 trucks. By way of example, this has enabled labor savings alone of more than $13 million. And we will achieve further improvements as we replicate best practice and extend our AHS fleet — both new and retrofit. We are now successfully operating the first Komatsu AHS truck retrofit in the world, and we will fine tune the retrofit process ahead of ex- panding to selected fleets, based on value." He continued, "Working with suppliers, we have also removed constraints in our truck fleets. Fitting better tires and lighter trays to our 240-ton trucks enables an extra 20 tons of ore or waste per load. The benefit is around 35 million mt of additional annu- al capacity, and we will now replicate this work across the 300-ton truck fleet." Another example: "Our 300-ton haul trucks have traditionally had a wheel mo- tor life of 35,000 hours. Complemented by a smaller midlife service at 25,000 hours, this work now occurs at 50,000 hours. Wheel motors are changed twice instead of three times over a truck life cy- cle, with corresponding savings of around $700,000 per truck." Rio Tinto also is moving strongly to- ward broader autonomous operations, announcing in December that it will ex- pand the autonomous truck fleet in its Pil- bara iron ore operations by 50% by 2019. BHP Aims for $1.2B in Maintenance Savings Meanwhile, BHP recently disclosed in a blog post that it uses more than 3,000 ma- chines across its operations, including 1,300 trucks, 400 loaders, 450 dozers, 240 drills, 200 excavators, and more, along with a variety of fixed plant equipment to pro- cess commodities. All this equipment cur- rently costs around $3.5 billion annually to maintain. The company is aiming to save $1.2 billion in maintenance costs by the end of FY2022 and reduce downtime by 20%, by focusing on defect elimination, improved planning and scheduling, and incorporat- ing optimized maintenance strategies. To support this effort, BHP created a Maintenance Center of Excellence to take advantage of BHP's global scale by drawing on the expertise, data and sys- tems available across its operations. It has established regional planning hubs in Brisbane, Perth and Adelaide, co-locat- ed with supply chain and maintenance strategy teams, to enable work to be more accurately planned further in advance. The goal is to improve supply chain per- formance, making frontline maintenance teams more effective, which in turn leads to improved availability and reduced cost. According to the company, the cen- ter's work to date has reduced master data errors, improved planning lead times and accuracy, and reduced life-of-asset costs. It has developed an asset-optimization strategy for the Caterpillar 793F haul truck, almost 300 of which are in use in BHP's op- erations around the world. The company brought together a team of experts from the coal, iron ore, copper, technology and supply teams to identify how to maximize the value of this truck based on the func- tion it performs at the various mining op- erations. By optimizing the maintenance and supply chain strategies, and setting operating limits for how those trucks are used in the field, it has reduced costs by a projected 20% across the remaining life of the fleet, and improved availability. Another example involves its Liebherr T282 haul truck fleet. By standardizing pit- stop servicing improvements, implement- ing preventative activities such as target- ed electrical component inspections for identified problem areas, and installing specific component updates and parts, BHP expects to reduce costs by a projected 18% across the remaining life of the fleet. Similarly, for its fleet of Caterpillar D10 and D11 dozers, it expects to reduce costs across the remaining life of the fleet as a result of improvements to undercarriage, hydraulics and power train. Drivers at Oyu Tolgoi no longer need to climb down truck stairs at shift changes. They now walk directly into or out of the cab using the raised platform shown here.

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