EVALUATING THE MAINTENANCE PRACTICES ON MINING EQUIPMENT: A CASE STUDY IN A SURFACE PLATINUM MINE

This research study assesses the maintenance practices on mining machinery as a case study in a surface platinum mine. The current literature commonly tends to highlight the significance of maintenance in respect to mining, yet it rarely provides specific analysis of various maintenance strategies and their effect on equipment performance in some specialized settings such as surface platinum mines. This research utilizes a robust, data-driven approach and reliability analysis to evaluate impact of maintenance strategies on some key performance indicators for maximizing platinum production. The research investigates historical maintenance records and key equipment performance metrics to identify connections between monitored maintenance practices such as planned and unplanned maintenance activities and important equipment performance indicators such as availability, mean time between failure and mean time to repair. The research outlined in this paper aims at providing a sound and evidence-based solution to evaluate maintenance regimes that are created for a surface platinum mine. By determining the most suitable maintenance strategy among the ones that are revealed through data analysis, the study aims at providing the decision-makers the recommendations on the equipment performance and effectiveness of maintenance practices.