Mechanical Technology November 2015

⎪ Materials handling and minerals processing ⎪

Integrated service boosts materials handling efficiency A Metso services solution has resulted in four times less downtime in minerals transportation for Chilean mining company, Doña Inés de Collahuasi.

I mplementing Metso’s integrated service and product offering has resulted in a significant efficiency boost for the minerals transporta- tion process of Doña Inés de Collahuasi in Chile. The Metso solution, delivered about a year ago, includes gathering and analysing field data from the chutes, a new liner design, the manufacture and assembly of three discharge chutes for the mine, as well as performance follow- up and further optimisation to ensure continuous improvement of the process. Doña Inés de Collahuasi is Chile’s third largest producer of copper. The company’s close co-operation with

Metso has already resulted in important changes in the design of the chute liners to improve the maintenance conditions by streamlining the changeover of anti- wear plates. The original design had a mean time between failures (MTBF) of approximately 20 days, an interval that has now been extended four-fold to 80 days and, through optimisation, this is expected to improve further. “As a company, we look for suppliers who provide an integrated service that includes engineering, manufacturing and assembly. Metso knew how to respond to our deadlines and objectives. In minerals transportation we’ve already seen the

Metso changed the design of the chute liners and streamlined the changeover of anti-wear plates. MTBF rising from 20 to 80 days, and we know that the number can be optimised even further,” explains Manuel Vera, as- set management and reliability manager at Minera Doña Inés de Collahuasi. According to Mauricio Carrasco, wear products and conveyor belt manager at Metso: “Providing integrated solutions is a key demand in the mining industry today. Our customers are familiar with Metso’s knowledge and solutions in these types of processes. They know that our service experts have both the field experi- ence and the factory certifications. This kind of an approach comes naturally to us, and it also saves our customers the time involved in having to coordinate with many different contractors working on the same project,” says Carrasco. The chute liners are now covered in Poly-Cer ® , which is designed to be resistant to strong abrasion even when subjected to high material tonnage at high speeds. Compared to the classic liner design, Poly-Cer is designed to increase liner wear life thanks to greater resistance, with an estimated operation of more than 150 days between change- out. “This lining is usually up to ten times

The chute liners are now covered in Poly-Cer ® , which is designed to be resistant to strong abrasion even when subjected to high material tonnage at high speeds.

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Mechanical Technology — November 2015