Faculty Publications

Production and productivity of any industry mainly depends on effective utilization of men and machinery. Underground mine production for the last few decades in India is not in satisfactory level, due to less mechanization. The maximum amount is expended for introducing the large scale mechanized equipment. Hence, mechanization in loading system has made advantageous towards production. In spite of this Load Haul Dumper (LHD) is one and used as loading and hauling machine for intermediate of operation. During the operation of the equipment, possible major breakdowns are occurred in some aspects. Therefore, these lead to reduce the percentage availability and utilization of the machines. As a result of this, it is very essential to analyze the performance of LHD machines, to reduce the cost during the operations. The higher availability of machine gives an optimum utilization, which increase the production and productivity of these principal intensive items. Keeping this in view, this paper focuses on improvement of overall equipment performance (OEP) by calculating the percentage availability and capacity utilization of LHDs in underground mines. Further an attempt is also emphasized to identify the contributing factors of performance improvement. © 2018 AMSE Press. All Rights Reserved.

Purpose: Load haul dumper (LHD) is one of the main ore transporting machineries used in underground mining industry. Reliability of LHD is very significant to achieve the expected targets of production. The performance of the equipment should be maintained at its highest level to fulfill the targets. This can be accomplished only by reducing the sudden breakdowns of component/subsystems in a complex system. The identification of defective component/subsystems can be possible by performing the downtime analysis. Hence, it is very important to develop the proper maintenance strategies for replacement or repair actions of the defective ones. Suitable maintenance management actions improve the performance of the equipment. This paper aims to discuss this issue. Design/methodology/approach: Reliability analysis (renewal approach) has been used to analyze the performance of LHD machine. Allocations of best-fit distribution of data sets were made by the utilization of Kolmogorov–Smirnov (K–S) test. Parametric estimation of theoretical probability distributions was made by utilizing the maximum likelihood estimate (MLE) method. Findings: Independent and identical distribution (IID) assumption of data sets was validated through trend and serial correlation tests. On the basis of test results, the data sets are in accordance with IID assumption. Therefore, renewal process approach has been utilized for further investigation. Allocations of best-fit distribution of data sets were made by the utilization of Kolmogorov–Smirnov (K–S) test. Parametric estimation of theoretical probability distributions was made by utilizing the MLE method. Reliability of each individual subsystem has been computed according to the best-fit distribution. In respect of obtained reliability results, the reliability-based preventive maintenance (PM) time schedules were calculated for the expected 90 percent reliability level. Research limitations/implications: As the reliability analysis is one of the complex techniques, it requires strategic decision making knowledge for the selection of methodology to be used. As the present case study was from a public sector company, operating under financial constraints the conclusions/findings may not be universally applicable. Originality/value: The present study throws light on this equipment that need a tailored maintenance schedule, partly due to the peculiar mining conditions, under which they operate. This study mainly focuses on estimating the performance of four numbers of well-mechanized LHD systems with reliability, availability and maintainability (RAM) modeling. Based on the drawn results, reasons for performance drop of each machine were identified. Suitable recommendations were suggested for the enhancement of performance of capital intensive production equipment. As the maintenance management is only the means for performance improvement of the machinery, PM time intervals were estimated with respect to the expected rate of reliability level. © 2019, Emerald Publishing Limited.

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