"Mining"

Downtime of a mining dump truck or an excavator could cost the mine operator over thousand dollars per hour. With such high costs associated with machine downtime, it is crucial for the mining industry to improve machine uptime.  What is machine downtime, uptime and availability? Let’s start with equipment availability. Equipment availability as the duration the equipment is ready when

Let’s define productivity as getting the job done faster. Increased mining equipment productivity helps miners do more with less. In the mining business, productivity is sometimes less space allocated to an engine, leaving extra room for more payload. Sometimes, it is less time for mine haul trucks to accelerate, thus maximizing the number of trips a day.  Miners have several opportunities

Mining industry uses approximately four percent of the world’s energy according to the International Energy Agency. This makes efficiency an important consideration for mining industry. This is true both at equipment level efficiency and site-level efficiency. Mines use energy for tasks ranging from mobile machinery operation to ventilation. Meanwhile, heavy mobile mining equipment such as haul

Some mine haul trucks feature $50,000 tires and consume up to 30 gallons of fuel an hour. It could cost over a million dollars a year to operate one of these mine haul trucks. These high costs are also combined with almost continuous use of equipment in mining industry. This combination allows even small improvements yield into major financial performance gains for miners.  What impacts th

Sustainable mining and reducing the cost of production are two of the focal points of this modernization. Cummins has been a part of this journey since the Cummins Model F engines powered the very first diesel shovel in 1926. "The mining industry is now an innovation hub. Mine sites feature the latest technologies from remote control equipment to driverless (autonomous) trucks. In fact, two of

Let’s define productivity as getting the job done faster, and increased productivity helps miners do more with less. In the mining business, productivity is sometimes less space being consumed by an engine, leaving room for more payload or less time to accelerate, thus maximizing the number of trips a day.  Miners have several opportunities to improve their operational productivity; below

It could cost the mine operator over thousand dollars per hour for a mining dump truck or a mining excavator not to be working. With such high costs associated with downtime, there is no question how important it is to improve equipment availability within the mining industry.  Let’s define equipment availability as the duration the equipment is ready when it matters. This is important for

Sixteen out of 93 pages for Glencore, 12 out of 75 pages for Rio Tinto and 11 out of 105 pages for BHP. These are the number of pages each of the world’s biggest miners allocated to sustainability in their most recent annual reports. It is just not the pages, as each of these miners have established commitments in reducing their environmental impact. Similarly, Cummins Inc. is driven to redu

Four percent of the world’s energy is estimated to be used by the mining sector according to the International Energy Agency. Mines use energy for tasks ranging from mobile machinery operation to ventilation, yet heavy mobile mining equipment such as haul trucks, excavators and loader use a considerable portion of a mine’s energy, making efficiency an important consideration.  Efficiency i

With the cost of $50,000 for a single tire and consumption of up to 30 gallons of fuel an hour, it could cost over a million dollars a year to operate a mine haul truck. With such high costs and almost continuous use of equipment, even small improvements yield into major affordability gains for miners. Let’s define affordability as minimizing the cost to acquire, maintain and dispose the equipm

It was not surprising that Fred from The Flintstones was a miner, given mining is one of the oldest industries in the world. The famously pink colored salt you used for dinner last night to bring out the flavors comes from the Khewra salt mine, which dates back to the era of Alexander the Great and is still in operation today. While the mining industry dates back to ancient times, and Cummins h