Preventative Maintenance For Peak Productivity

While the idea of leaving things alone applies to many activities beyond cooking, it is not an effective approach to the screening process within mineral processing environments. Undetected issues with vibrating screens can allow out-of-spec material to pass through, as well as cause further damage over time. In addition, any downtime for repairs can lead to production losses.

It is not viable for operators to monitor vibrating screens all the time. Fortunately, using a condition monitoring system takes this task off their hands, ensuring screens stay healthy without constant attention.

Proactive performance over reactionary repairs

Any mineral production plant faces the challenges of maintaining the uptime of its equipment, while reducing the cost of corrective maintenance. The information that condition monitoring systems provide can therefore be an invaluable asset to mine managers. However, not all systems are made equally.

Most of the available options on the market are reactive and unable to prevent unscheduled shutdowns and costly reduction in output. This is typically because these systems send only very specific information, and often in a format that is difficult for operators to understand.

Condition monitoring systems that stand out from the pack are those that use modern algorithms and artificial intelligence to monitor the health of the vibrating screens on site. These condition monitoring systems use their advanced technology to forecast the equipment’s dynamic condition, as well as predict necessary maintenance and provide critical downtime alerts. They can identify common types of failures such as lubrication faults, contamination, and bearing damage, as well as loose or broken structural parts of the vibrating screen body. Over time, a condition monitoring system should be getting ‘smarter’ by using its artificial intelligence to improve the accuracy of the alerts it sends.

Understandably, purchasing any monitoring system can seem like an additional cost on top of other operational expenses. However, it is important to note that a well-chosen condition monitoring system almost eliminates unscheduled downtimes, significantly reduces corrective maintenance hours, and consequently increases equipment performance. Typically, most operations encounter an average of one significant issue each month, with a total of 10 – 12 per year. In some cases, just one critical alert effectively pays for an entire three years of a condition monitoring system. When considering that certain condition monitoring systems prevent critical failure for just US$22 per day, it is hard to refute that the investment is worth the reward.

Read the article online at: https://www.globalminingreview.com/mining/08032024/preventative-maintenance-for-peak-productivity/