Hoist Optimization with OEE

There is a high demand in the mining industry today for sustainable improvement and continuous increases in production. These buzzwords spark interest, but actualizing sustainable improvement within a mining operation can seem a daunting task. As expectations on production continue to increase, merely achieving budget is no longer enough. If we think about the mining industry, regardless of commodity, every leader has a clear objective to drive efficiency and productivity.

“How do we get more production from the assets we already have?”

Getting the most out of a Hoisting operation can be challenging with only a limited set of performance data readily available. It is common for an operation to only track downtime, skip counts and production totals on a per shift basis, with targets normally based on past performance.

But what happens when the Hoist becomes the bottleneck of the mining operation, or operating costs increase to the point that they can’t be sustained? How do you use this basic information to understand where the opportunities for improvements are?

What if one skip bin was consistently being under filled? What if it took 15 seconds longer for one bin to be filled compared to the other? What if you could move the same shift tonnage 1 hour quicker? How much of a difference would this make?

In today’s mining environment, it is often overlooked that downtime events only make up about 40-60% of all asset losses, yet we typically give these events 100% of our focus. Imagine if you were able to quickly identify all losses and know possible causes for investigation automatically in real-time.

This is where a robust automated OEE program adds the most value, by providing clear insight into the complete loss equation. When OEE or a Production OEE program is structured correctly, it allows the improvement team to clearly understand the biggest losses in the Hoist area regardless of how they come about.  

Production OEE pulls apart the operational activities and allows you to classify losses in terms of production.

As an example, under filled skips could be costing you 300 oz of gold per day, and in reality this could be a quick fix if the impact is understood. Perhaps the skip docking time is running over, constantly costing you a few seconds per cycle. Can I tell that this is costing me 2000 oz gold per month without a well-structured Production OEE program? This information is typically not captured, and can be very elusive to find. If structured correctly, the OEE program not only identifies losses directly caused within the Hoist, but can also identify impacts both above and below ground for other production influencing assets.   

Now if your Hoist is not the bottleneck or constraint, imagine the impact of optimizing it with Production OEE to the point where you can turn it off, save on power and costs, redeploy manpower for better productivity, and improve reliability with more maintenance time.

I have seen Hoist's Optimized with a Production based OEE model, and it is a good business decision, as it helps to increase production output, drive down costs, and drive up productivity.