Situation

Operators of a large gold mine in West Africa needed to improve their GET performance on 6060 Face Shovel and 6060 Backhoe machines. The customer couldn’t meet their budgeted production levels with their asset availability, and with buoyant gold prices at the time, greater productivity for the operation would lead to improved profitability for the company.

Solution

After listening to the customer’s concerns and analysing their unique work environment, Bradken recommended a change in GET point style to a Bradken Eclipse Tooth System. This better matched the hardware to the West African hard rock conditions.

Results

As a result of Bradken’s proposal to switch to the Eclipse range, the customer increased their asset availability by more than 560 hours per year, helping to meet budgeted production levels.

Positive feedback from the field maintenance team changing points was immediate.

Key benefits

• Average point life increased from 60 hrs to 130 hrs.
• Down time to change a set of 6 points halved from 1 hour to 0.5 hours, also meaning the maintenance teams exposure to safety hazards reduced by 50%.
• Point changes reduced from 4200+ points per year to 1950 points per year.
• Point pin vs adapter usage ratio 1:1. Point pins now last as long as the adapters.

The extra 560 hrs not only means increased production, it also means the field maintenance team reduce their exposure to safety hazards during point changes, making their job safer.