Mine Shovel Inspections Save Millions in Repairs and Provide Other Benefits

Did you know that through our partnership with Exxon Mobil Serv program we provide mining shovel inspections? An on-site technician performs regular inspections and provides insights that will optimize performance and improve equipment life.

In working with one customer over the past year, many recommendations and simple repairs have been made including replacement of failed injectors, damaged hoses, leaks, dry pins, bad hitch pins (missing bolts), and house rollers failure.

This is estimated to have helped this customer:

Reduce OSHA exposure hours by 700+ over the year by preventing downtime and lengthy repairs
Improve the mine’s impact on the environment and provide cost savings by reducing oil consumption by 15,885 Gallons
And add $2,163,446 in revenue to the bottom line by extending equipment life and uptime

How are these benefits calculated? The cost of prevented repairs, man-hours, downtime and leaking lubricant is calculated. Most inspections reveal small repairs that can be done now that prevent larger repairs, such as properly greasing the undercarriage so you don’t have to replace the whole thing in a year.

Here are two example cases from the past year:

A potential fire and $1,980,000 in estimated savings were prevented when it was found that a housing was flooded with grease and oil and the shovels had:
- Critically dry point sheaves
- Grease injectors throttled to less than 10% of required lubrication
- Contaminated house roller
- Interior compartment flooded with oil and grease due to a leaky hoist
- Various failed injectors
- A broken bolt on the front load roller
$450,000 in impending repairs was prevented when our inspector found:
- Damaged and broken grease lines to point sheaves, leaving them dry
- Several critical undercarriage components that were close to failure due to a lack of lubrication including idlers, tumblers and load rollers
- Lube injectors and lube feed blocks that were not properly functioning
- Weld breakage and broken ladder adjustments posing a potential injury threat
- Additional cracks and missing bolts in the hoist case and boom attachments

If you are interested in our embedded tech program, shovel inspections, or lubrication management, please reach out to the RIG team: 800-770-4510 or [email protected]