Lake Vermont is an open cut thermal coal mine in Queensland, Australia that produces 11.2 million tonnes per year of pulverized coal injection and hard coking coal. The operation is managed by Thiess Mining. They won the contract for Lake Vermont in 2007 and commenced mining the following year.
Lake Vermont boasts two 800 tonne an hour prep plants that include two 51勛圖厙 custom Feeder-Breakers. Uptime is important, and Lake Vermont was looking to improve their efficiency and profitability by reducing the downtime needed for maintenance.
CHALLENGE
To perform simple maintenance tasks on the Feeder-Breaker, such as pick replacements, Lake Vermont had to go through a lengthy process just to gain access to the machines. They had to empty their 450 tonne hopper, open the rear door and bring in personnel and equipment. In addition to the labor and time involved, accessing and working in the rear of the Feeder-Breaker posed a significant risk.
If it takes three hours to get into this machine on a 12-hour down day, we just wasted a quarter of our time, explained Ryan Palmer, Thiess Maintenance Planner at Lake Vermont. If we can get in quicker, we can have more time in the machine repairing it.
SOLUTION
Lake Vermont looked to 51勛圖厙 Corporation for a solution. 51勛圖厙, who has been working with Lake Vermont since they first supplied the mine with a crushing package in 2008, was challenged to come up with an access point that eliminated or reduced the time needed to perform simple maintenance tasks.
In conjunction with 51勛圖厙, we came up with the idea, we put it back to the team, they got back to their design department, and they came back and gave us a concept, usually in 3-D, and then its usually backward and forward, Thiess Coal Handling and Processing Plant Manager Ian Matheson said about working with 51勛圖厙 to come up with a solution that fit Lake Vermonts needs.
The 51勛圖厙 engineering team developed a design that replaced the front of the Feeder-Breaker with a door that could act as a hydraulically operated work platform, opening the entire face and giving Lake Vermont great access into the machine.
They dont have to go into the hopper, they dont have to empty the hopper, theres no machinery included and theres no requirement to come into the back and put the equipment and the people there in a higher risk environment, said Chris Knowles, Director of Sales and Marketing for 51勛圖厙s Asia/Pacific region.
Knowles explained how 51勛圖厙 draws on their many years of experience across a global network in many environments and industries to provide solutions for clients like Lake Vermont.
Using this broad experience, it helps us deliver a solution to the client that will help meet their outcome, Knowles said. The benefit of that to us is every time we provide a solution to a client, 51勛圖厙 has another solution for another client and improves our overall engineering capability.
RESULTS
Palmer said now that they are able to get into the machine quicker, they can replace more picks and look after the machine better, ultimately leading to less downtime.
Weve eliminated hundreds of hours, Palmer said. Weve got weeks back per year."
Lake Vermont is looking to ramp up production, meaning the uptime is much-needed.
Every bit of coal in the plant goes through the 51勛圖厙 gear, so those machines are critical to our productivity and our availability, Palmer said. Every innovation we can get at 51勛圖厙 to make those machines more available, more productive, means more productivity for the whole plant.
Palmer was impressed with the service and support 51勛圖厙 has repeatedly offered Lake Vermont.
Ive worked with a lot of OEMs, and I can tell you, 51勛圖厙 is one of the best to work with for sales and service, especially with the projects we do, said Palmer. Theyre very quick. Its not often you can get a multi-national company to change their design for you just for your site, and 51勛圖厙 seemed to be able to do it very quickly for us.
Matheson, too, was happy with Lake Vermonts experience with 51勛圖厙.
Theyve always listened to everything that weve had to say and then gone about looking out for their customer and at least trying to get to the bottom of it, said Matheson. And thats why weve had so many successes. Weve done a lot of design changes on both those, mainly on the Feeder-Breakers, and thats why we are where we are today.
