#ARCTIC. #SIBERIA. THIS IS TAIMYR. At the Oktyabrsky mine, an underground equipment operational maintenance system is being tested directly at the workplace. In order to save time, in case of minor malfunctions, the miners decided not to drive the underground equipment to the repair base, but to carry out repairs right on the shift.
To eliminate minor breakdowns at Oktyabrsky, separate workings with an area of about 120 square meters were specially equipped. There, at lunchtime, you can drive in an underground delivery vehicle and the mechanics quickly inspect it, tighten, correct or adjust what is needed. The miners called their new service a pit stop – by analogy with the quick cars service on race tracks.
Now there are four such pit stops at Oktyabrsky on different horizons. During a loader driver’s lunch, two repairmen quickly inspect the car, as they say, in a circle.
They detect oil and process fluids leaks, check the fasteners of units and assemblies, the hydraulic systems tightness, the controls and security systems operability.
If small deviations from the norm are found, the malfunctions are eliminated on the spot. Inspection is carried out by the enterprise for the mining equipment maintenance specialists within an hour.
A visual equipment inspection is also carried out by a loader driver: before the shift, during work and after the shift, a separate check during the break – together with the repairmen group. Faults are recorded in special journals and brought to the attention of mechanics.
According to mechanics, identifying the causes of malfunctions in advance in order to correct them in time is the best practice in using technology. The repairmen group manages to identify, among other things, what the driver might not have noticed.
For operational inspection and maintenance of underground equipment for repairmen, standards are defined that are posted on the stand at the venue. Here are the main places, components and assemblies that need to be checked at the pit stop on each brand of underground vehicles, as well as the standard time for each point, which does not exceed 15 minutes.
“The Pit Stop project was launched to prevent equipment failure and emergencies, to reduce emergency repairs directly in mining areas. At the Oktyabrsky mine, there are 16 loaders and four dump trucks to perform production tasks – four pit stops are enough for this number. We have gained positive experience in using such a system, and in the future, we are considering the issue of servicing drilling rigs and other auxiliary equipment in the same way”, says Vadim Islamov, technical manager for the organization of mining operations of the center of planning, organizing and monitoring the mining operations execution at the Oktyabrsky mine.
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Text: Denis Kozhevnikov, Photo: Nikolay Shchipko
