WRUMM Staff Place: Stockman’s Hotel

Rick Cruea—Chairman * City: Elko, Nevada

Dave Starbuck—Vice Chairman

Ben Lupercio—Secretary *

Steve Volkert—Treasurer

* Both elected at the April meeting.

The Chairman, Rod Cymbulak gave his farewell statement as he now works on the vendor side of our business. Rod has been a valuable asset to our organization over the years and will be missed. The Vice-Chairman, Dave Starbuck conducted the meeting and started with an introduction of the members as we had quite a few new attendee’s. The second item of business was the election of the Secretary position, which was scheduled and the Chairman, which was due to circumstance. The new secretary is Ben Lupercio from Barrick and our new Chairman is Rick Cruea also from Barrick. After reviewing the minutes from the last meeting, old business was discussed. The new members of the group were updated on the Web site and passwords were issued for the site. There were 16 members present at the meeting.

Time was then turned our to our Treasurer for our state of finances. Steve reviewed the reason for the last meeting in Salt Lake and the costs associated with having it there. It was a very expensive meeting and we had limited turnout. The goal was to hopefully increase membership with the Utah and Wyoming mines attending which didn’t prove positive. He also clarified our meeting dues, which are $30.00 per meeting per person or $100.00 for four or more from the same mine. The balance in our account now stands at $1966.00.

Dennis Hood from Atlas Copco reported that they are receiving inventory of Wagner parts daily into Elko. This should speed up parts orders for the local mines but all orders will still go through Lakeshore until after July.

AngloGold has had a lot of problems with the life expectancy of the front ends on the 5400 and 5700 Kubota’s. They had Mentaberry Machine out of Elko take one of their old front ends and put a bearing and pillow block update on them, which has worked very well. The cost was comparable to a new front axle but the maintenance costs were greatly reduced. For more information on this contact Bud Lauderback at AngoGold. (775) 738-5006 ext. 383 or blauderback@anglogoldna.com. The contact at Mentaberry would be Ron Brown. Bob Peterson from Newmont stated they put a leaf spring from one axle mount to the other to absorb some of the shock the front ends take and this seems to work also. Check with Bob on this one if you have questions. On one last Kubota issue, Barrick has had some of their machines popping out of second gear. Other mines stated they had the same problems. Barrick and Young’s machine out of Elko are working on the problem and will notify the group of any updates.

Newmont reported operations are required to wash their equipment at least once during each shift. Greens Creek also has operations wash their own equipment when brought to the shop for problems like overheating. With this practice in place it has cut the mechanic time on washing in half, allowing more wrench time on the unit. It has also shown that the operator finds and sees different problems with his machine while he’s washing it. Barrick has just put a wash tech on each shift to wash equipment. Their goal is to improve maintenance time and quality of the PM’s.

The tie discussion came up again. The standard practice is to deflate the tire to 5-15 PSI to take the tire off and also to install it. Most of the mines feel this is not necessary, as a newly mounted tire is safer than actually deflating and then airing it up. The way tires are handled at each mine also seems to vary depending if it is shaft or portal operation. Any input on this issue or practices you are doing at your mines and shops would be valued.

Accident damage continues to be a problem in the mines, taking a large part of maintenance time and budgets. As reported in the November meeting, holding operations accountable is the key. With most of the mines now measuring or recording accident damage and with the use of cost supports, accident damage is on a decline since the last meeting. Training is another side of the equation. Along with the fender benders, accident damage due to operator or maintenance neglect is an issue. Anglogold’s maintenance group brought in all the truck drivers to have a class on what causes overspeeds. Prior to the class, their haul trucks recorded numerous overspeeds on DDEC and after the class the problem nearly went away. With DDEC 4, all infractions are time dated to source the problems.

There have been numerous meeting on DPM issues and what soot filter or what type of fuel to use to minimize particulate lately. One less heard of idea out there is a product made by Donaldson. It is a hot exhaust filter that traps particulate. This is not a regenerating type of soot filter its more in line with the dry systems that incorporate exhaust cooling and then run through a paper filter but without the cooling process. If this works, this filter would be changed daily, weekly or when ever the backpressure requires and then discarded for a new one. This is in the testing stage and MSHA will be testing one in April. If testing proves positive, this may be another option to the soot filters, or for use on the smaller horsepower machines or a combination of both.

Oil vendor

Atlas Copco

Filter manufacturer

Thelma

Ford tractors

Jackleg Drill Company

Smith DDA on DDEC 3DL software

Bio Diesel – Berry Hinkley

Pro-Parts

Kubota Tractors

Damler Chrysler bought Detroit in 1997 and they have built 250,000 engines since then and are represented by many product types in 100 mines. One of the products being the 900 series 4-6 cylinder engines. This engine filled a mid range horsepower spot for their company. Its produced in Mannheim Germany since 1996 and has 300,000 engines world wide and 1,600 in the United States. These engines are turbo charged and charge air cooled with three valve technology. They have a low swirl combustion system with high-pressure injection fuel system (23,200 PSI). They also feature cast iron head and cylinder induction hardened block with fracture split connecting rods along with being fully electronic. This engine is EPA Tier 2 certified for non-road. Newmont and Barrick within our group have some of these engines in use if you would like field type productivity information.

Why would you want to use a RCM program and what benefits would it have for your company. The goal is to reduce costs, improve availability, health, safety and environment. To get there you need to know the cause of the failure commonly know as the root cause analysis. The best method to analyze this is to assemble a crossfuntional team to look at all the possibilities that caused the failure. Continually look for ways to improve the reliability of the equipment. Gil stated that during the brief time his group has been looking at specific problems at Newmont, they have come up with some valuable cost saving solutions.

John discussed the different types of systems they build and service which are air, oil and water. The pressure rating for water range from 15 to 50 PSI, oil and air from 50 to 500 PSI. Within these systems they have side by side, front to back and vertical with replaceable tubes in these configurations. Available through L & M is a software performance package to assist in trouble shooting and checking your systems. In summary, the key to a good system is dependent on an accurate description of all systems to be cooled and good maintenance is key to optimum performance.