Sandvik, manufacturer of rock drilling rigs, crushers and screeners, has joined mining, construction and explosives manufacturer Dyno Nobel to form an alliance to help customers process more rock more profitably in less time.
The alliance is not a business merger, but an agreement to share competencies in order to provide customers with expert counseling about how to create a highly effective rock-processing system.
At a recent press conference, executives of the two companies explained that when customers had sought advice in the past, often a blasting expert would look only at the blasting portion of the production process and suggest improvements in that phase of the operation. Or, conversely, a drilling and processing expert would suggest how to improve only those segments of the operation.
This alliance, say Sandvik and Dyno Nobel, represents the first time customers can have experts from both areas work together to analyze a rock-processing operation as a complete system and recommend changes based on making all the segments work together to increase productivity while lowering overall operating costs.
For example, it doesn’t make sense to increase blasting and loading capacity if the crusher is already operating at the maximum rate it can handle.
Dan Allan, Sandvik’s president for the U.S. and Canadian region, said that the Sandvik-Dyno Nobel team looks at the whole process, from stripping, drilling and blasting to loading, hauling, primary and secondary crushing, and other operations.
Said Allan, "We are applying lean-manufacturing principles to a process that has rarely seen them before."
Larry Mirabelli, senior technical consultant for Dynoconsult, a division of Dyno Nobel, said that the Sandvik-Dyno Nobel team has already completed a project in Missouri with superior results.
The process included:
Establishing a baseline (representing the operation’s original process times and levels).Deciding what to measure and how to measure it.Applying "lean" thinking to the process.Changing the process to maximize throughput while minimizing overall cost.Validating or confirming the results.
Early on, analysis found that drilling and blasting performance greatly affected the efficiency of the whole processing system.
One of the largest hindrances to production was oversized pieces of rock blocking the feeder for the primary crusher.
The cure was changing drilling and blasting methods to make sure all the blasted rock was a size the feeder could handle.
The tuning of the system also included a number of other changes that improved efficiency.
The overall initial results were stunning.
Even though drilling and blasting cost went up 28 percent, the operation’s overall cost per ton of finished product dropped 17 percent.
Waste-handling cost also dropped 17 percent.
And the plant’s production capacity rose 10 percent.
Increased efficiency enabled the quarry operator to cut the number of operating days needed to meet sales commitments by 25 percent.
After that first-pass success, the Sandvik and Dyno Nobel experts made even more improvements, including changes to the machinery and other modifications that brought even better results.
Bill Hissem, Sandvik senior mining and applications engineer, said, "In the end, all the changes increased the operation’s throughput from 375 tons per hour to 700 tons, an increase of 86 percent – while cutting overall production costs."
Added Allan, "The whole goal is to share our company competencies in order to serve our customers better."
At the press conference, the companies announced that they will hold a "Quarry Academy" training school from Nov. 11 – 13, 2008. The location has not been announced.
For more information, visit www.quarryacademy.com.
