Published in June 2009 Australian Longwall Magazine

Eickhoff is not a new name to Australian underground coal, and certainly not to the world’s longwall mines. It has been in existence since 1864, setting up shop in Australia in 1981. The original equipment manufacturer currently has its shearers in 10 Australian longwall mines, representing 30% of the market.

Eickhoff Australia managing director John Smallwood told Australian Longwall the company had recognised the need to grow in the Australian market and had undertaken some “radical changes”. One of those changes is an extension of its refurbishment facility in Braemer, New South Wales. The expansion will increase the facility’s size by 30% and help support the growing number of Eickhoff shearers at work in Australia.

“Within our expansion plans we will accommodate the stock holding required for machine overhauls within the same location, which will reduce the double-handling and save on time within the overhauls process,” Smallwood said.

“The existing workshop will be reorganised and a workflow for overhauls has been developed that will be implemented on the completion of the extension. This will streamline the operation from the receipt of the dirty machine from the mine to the finished overhauled product ready for return to the operation.”

A new direction in leadership has been provided by Smallwood, who became managing director in late 2007. He was joined in April this year by Geoff Newby, who took up the deputy manager position.

Newby, who has spent the past 18 years in the Australian mining industry, will predominantly manage the day-to-day business activities in Queensland and play a major role in the drive to implement the new processes being introduced within the company.

“With Geoff onboard it will allow improved building of our relationship with our customers from a managerial level and on a more frequent basis … it will also provide duplication within the management structure, affording a more timely response to our customer base throughout the country,” Smallwood said.

Smallwood himself is no stranger to the longwall sector, beginning his career as a mechanical apprentice with British Coal (formerly the National Coal Board) before obtaining his AMEME Hons (Association of Mining, Electrical and Mechanical Engineers, UK) and mechanical engineers certificate. He spent 14 years with British Coal before joining a major original equipment manufacturer.

He joined Eickhoff in 1988 as part of a service team to oversee the introduction of two of the first all-electric, multi-motor shearer loaders into the British mining industry, and became general manager in 1999 before taking up his current Australian position.

Smallwood sees Eickhoff as having a unique position in the Australian marketplace.

“Eickhoff Australia are a company specialising in shearer loaders and hence we have the advantage of our engineers being trained in a single product line, giving the customer the specific information at the time of asking, as opposed to having people who need to have an understanding of a full array of mining products but are not a specialist in any,” he said.

“We have a dedicated team of service personnel well trained and experienced in our product and have service centres based in the coal mining areas of Australia.”

To make sure it is not missing out on serving customers who prefer to buy their longwall as a package, Eickhoff has aligned itself with Inbye Mining Services, successfully tendering for Vale’s Carborough Downs mine.

“Although Eickhoff internationally play a major role in the supply of shearer loaders at some of the highest-producing mines and countries in the world, it is often the case that the customer is looking for a single source supplier for the longwall package and as a specialist product supplier.

“We find it then becomes difficult in some cases to sell into the new complete longwall package when we are competing for a small part of the package against the larger OEMs who can offer everything.”

The Carborough Downs compatibility testing was recently successfully completed at Inbye’s Mackay facilities and the longwall is planned to begin production in August this year.

The SL1000 shearer loader for Carborough has an extraction range of 3-5.3m with a 2.6m-diameter drum. It is equipped with 900-kilowatt cutter motors at each end of the machine and 150kW AC inverter drive technology haulage motors connected to each of the two haulage units.

The machine has total installed power of 2190kW and, according to Smallwood, is one of the most powerful shearers in the world.

“Eickhoff look forward to working with Inbye in the future on forthcoming new longwall tenders and we are confident that together we can continue to build a strong working relationship within the alliance,” he said.

“Eickhoff Australia will also continue to increase our market share by offering shearer loaders to replace our competitors’ machines and ageing machines from within our existing fleet.”

One area of technology Eickhoff has continued working on is automation, including its own automation and CSIRO’s LASC automation.

It has already found great success with its own automation package (EiControl), which has been operational at numerous mines around Australia and in other countries for some years.

“We have now installed the EiControlSB software into the Carborough Downs shearer to give the customer the state-based automation functionality,” Smallwood said.

“We see the CSIRO LASC program as the next phase of taking automation to an enhanced level.”

LASC has already been proven on an Eickhoff shearer, an SL750, during trials at the Grasstree mine. It will next be rolled out onto the Carborough Downs SL1000 and is soon to be incorporated into the Integra Coal SL750 machine. The rollout is part of the commercial release of the system by CSIRO and in accordance with the technology licensing agreement that Eickhoff Australia signed with the organisation in February this year.

“It has been demonstrated over the period of the development of the LASC system that the safety of the operators will be further improved by the ability to enable positioning of the operators on the longwall out of the dust and away from the noise and advancing roof supports. A more consistent operation will produce the added benefit of what is quoted as a conservative 5 per cent increase in the cutting rate of the system,” Smallwood said.

On a global scale, Eickhoff’s design and development department has been keeping busy.

For several years Eickhoff has operated a bidirectional radio control system with bluetooth technology that allows data from the shearer to be displayed on the operator’s handheld controller, negating the need for the operator to enter the dusty area close to the machine to observe data on the machine-mounted screen display.

“We are currently introducing a shearer loader onto its second longwall operation fitted with state-of-the-art technology in the form of anti-collision radar sensors, onboard cameras and headlights, and infra-red sensors for seam band recognition,” Smallwood said.

“The second operation of this machine has been deployed to a different minesite to the first introduction and this will allow a broader collection of data and a fuller understanding of the feedback based on different seam conditions and mine operations.” Eickhoff plans to continue to make important technological gains on its shearers despite the current economy slowdown.

“The effects of the global financial crisis have not been seen to hit the underground sector as hard as the open cut mines. Longwall mines take a lot of planning and are not as easily switched on and off in comparison to an open cut mine,” Smallwood said.

“Eickhoff are maintaining good business levels in Australia and throughout the rest of the world, and the parent company had their best year on record, producing 40 shearer loaders in 2008 and will produce a similar number in 2009.”