Application of reliability-centered maintenance for productivity improvement of open pit mining equipment: Case study of Sungun Copper Mine

Abstract

Equipment plays an important role in open pit mining industry and its cost competence at efficient operation and maintenance techniques centered on reliability can lead to significant cost reduction. The application of optimal maintenance process was investigated for minimizing the equipment breakdowns and downtimes in Sungun Copper Mine. It results in the improved efficiency and productivity of the equipment and lowered expenses as well as the increased profit margin. The field operating data of 10 trucks are used to estimate the failure and maintenance profile for each component, and modeling and simulation are accomplished by using reliability block diagram method. Trend analysis was then conducted to select proper probabilistic model for maintenance profile. Then reliability of the system was evaluated and importance of each component was computed by weighted importance measure method. This analysis led to identify the items with critical impact on availability of overall equipment in order to prioritize improvement decisions. Later, the availability of trucks was evaluated using Monte Carlo simulation and it is revealed that the uptime of the trucks is around 11000 h at 12000 operation hours. Finally, uncertainty analysis was performed to account for the uncertainty sources in data and models. © 2014 Central South University Press and Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg.