Courtesy of Boart Longyear
tools of the trade
In the past core orientation had been a long and laborious process, with operators forced to disassemble their drill to insert an electronic controller before finding the core sample’s lowest point. Boart Longyear expects to make the process easier with its new core orientation system, TruCore. “TruCore was developed to provide consistent, accurate core orientation to geologists on site,” said Adam Tomaszewski, product manager for Boart Longyear’s instrumentation product line. With TruCore, drill operators simply press a button on the handheld controller to begin orienting the core sample, without needing to disassemble the drill. The TruCore comes with flashing LEDs to make it easier to align the tool with the core sample by pointing the controller at an LED light port and rotating the core barrel until the LEDs flash red. From there, the controller will tell the driller the core sample can be marked at the bottom. “You have a significant reduction in manual handling over the market leader right now,” said Tomaszewski. “The main feature is TruCore has wireless communication so there’s no need to disassemble a tool to take a mark.” The system is also able to alert users when the sample has been oriented or if the orientation has failed. – Vince Morello 16 | CIM Magazine | Vol. 11, No. 6
Easier maintenance With most screens, maintenance on the main bearings requires a work shift to complete and work on the rubber mounts takes another one. But because of the complexity of its mounting system and the number of components in it, Haver and Boecker’s used to take almost two days. To save clients time, the company released a new Tyler F Class Split Bucket Mounting System. The split bucket has a two-piece body, which allows operators to easily remove the side arm and bucket at once, and reduces maintenance downtime to one 12hour shift. “We found a solution where the outside bearing and the surrounding components don’t have to be dismantled,” said Dieter Takev, Haver and Boecker’s vice-president of engineering and technology. “The entire unit can be pulled off in one piece painlessly and quickly.” The split bucket and split body bracket “can be lifted off the supporting frame like the truck bed off a truck,” added Takev. – Vince Morello Courtesy of Haver and Boecker
Simplified orientation
With so many parts of an operation generating data, mining companies now have a glut of information that could help improve productivity at their sites, but may not have the time or resources to analyze it. AMC Consultants plans to help mine operators with this problem through its new On-line Benchmarking service. The company will collect equipment-use data from a client’s operation either onsite or remotely to understand the project and build a working relationship with operators at the mine. “We’re providing analysis around the productivity, the operating hours, availability utilisation and breaking down the time components [of when equipment is or is not being used],” said Kate Sommerville, business improvement manager at AMC. The analysis will consist of building a capacity model – the maximum throughput a mine site can achieve with what Sommerville calls a “good level of productivity” – and comparing it to the site’s current position, its budget and the company’s forecast target. If the site’s maximum capacity is lower than the company’s goals, AMC will look at the site data it has collected and help its client resolve any productivity issues. AMC can also benchmark a mine site and compare it to other operations, either within the company or that produce the same commodity. – Vince Morello
Courtesy of AMC Consultants
Analytical assist