Run as part of the group’s Operating Excellence initiative, the second study team, lead by project coach Darren Lee set out to reduce weekly delays due to conveyors by half, initially thought to be in the order of 6.5 hours per week.

An earlier study was completed last year, which included all conveyors from panel bootend to the bottom of the underground bin. That study team, lead by project coach Allen Bond, was aligned with the installation of Minesuite monitoring software on the conveyor system.

The second study followed on from that work and was able to begin drawing down and analysing data made available by the monitoring system. Minesuite has provided the opportunity to trend conveyor delays and to analyse them in many different ways, at great speed, with the computing power of the tool.

“Minesuite captures all conveyor related delay data and pigeonholes it into categories. One of the team’s early wins uncovered an error in the original data collection method. A large group of data was being placed into a generic basket labelled Outbye services, which accounted for some 10 hours of delays that were essentially missing, ”said OE coach Darren Lee.

Identifying the actual cause for this basket of delays involved many hours of manual data searching and checking of deputies’ record sheets.

Once Minesuite was reconfigured (by giving access to further options), the control officers were able to correctly input information. This has allowed the team to highlight belt tracking as the current key reason for belts delays at Appin Mine. The team then prioritised efforts to reduce tracking delays. For example spillage at transfer points was identified as contributing to tracking delays and severe belt damage caused by the longwall bootend was another. Some drivehead headframes were also found to be under-size, allowing twisting to occur, causing premature head roller failure, as well as tracking issues.

The longwall belt itself will be substantially changed at the time of the next longwall move and Lee expects improvements in downtime to become apparent as all 15 Solutions are implemented over the next 12 months.

“Minesuite is a good tool but is only as good as the data that is put in. You need good reliable data with well-defined delay information. We found you need someone to monitor the entry process,” Lee said.