You will find this English/Spanish mining terminology very useful. Please download and utilize. More technical mining-related  English/Spanish terminology to follow.

If its equipment and you do something to keep it running, make it run or make it run better then it’s maintenance. If its equipment and you modify it or move it, that’s not maintenance. If you build, construct or install something, you can’t maintain it until it exists. Wait, there’s more . . .   All equipment is in a constant state of deterioration. That’s why PM is ‘detection oriented.’ The idea is to find the problem and fix it before it blows up!   An overhaul can’t be PM as some think. When an overhaul is required there is so much wrong with the equipment that it must be removed from service. There is nothing left to prevent.   Overhauls and rebuilds are not the same thing. You rebuild the truck engine. And you overhaul the truck.   If your objective is to avoid premature equipment failure and extend equipment life, it’s PM.   If the idea is to use continuous monitoring to asses equipment performance to extend equipment life and avoid the consequences of failure its Reliability Centered Maintenance (RCM). And if you are trying to identify the causes of failure and reduce or eliminate them, you must be able to define reliability. Try this:    Reliability – A measure of the capability of a unit of production equipment, process or circuit to operate at designed capacity within its specified operating envelope while adhering to prescribed maintenance requirements within a designated time period and meet established levels of product output or service duration.     Other stuff  - -     When maintenance has not determined which work requires planning, bad stuff happens. First, planners are overcome with processing work orders for jobs that don’t need planning. Then, by the time the maintenance supervisors are alerted, these small jobs have become emergency repairs. And, when the planner realizes he has been conned into ‘the work order administrator’ he has no time left to plan anything.   The term ‘CMMS’ doesn’t really exist. Few maintenance organizations have a dedicated information system. Most use a work order system which is part of a fully-integrated system also used for inventory control, payroll or purchase order tracking all tied to an accounting. It’s a mystery why other departments think the work order system is the exclusive means of maintenance work control. If you do work - - of any kind - - like road grading in the pit - - use the work order system.      The most successful maintenance managers are those who have figured out that they need help from other departments and have managed to tell them how!   The best mine or plant managers are those who recognize that maintenance needs help from other departments and verifies that they get it.   Operations supervisors are really diplomats. They must ensure that operators don’t bust the equipment while trying to find out what maintenance really does and how to get it.   Maintenance craftsmen are actually ‘frustrated art appreciators’. They know that well-planned work make their jobs easier and allows them to perform higher quality work.   Maintenance foremen have the most difficult jobs in industry. No matter who busted the equipment or who is responsible for the ‘no show’ preceding the sudden failure, it’s their fault!   In the view of most operations folks, ‘downtime’ is only a maintenance term.                   

ISO 55000 is a standard for establishing an asset management system. When applied by mining operations to maintenance the outcome is consistently reliable production equipment sufficient to meet production goals that assure profitability. When internal maintenance functions are assessed, the procedures used confirm a world class performance level. Numerous such assessments have resulted in a compilation of performance standards, which upon successful application can help align an organization to achieve world class designation. Please examine the 25 performance standards applicable to Preventive Maintenance (PM). Subsequently, standards applicable to other critical maintenance functions such as planning, scheduling and work control will be posted. This information extracted from: Maintenance in Transition – The journey to World Class Maintenance. Courtesy: Paul D. Tomlingson  

The Best Training Results - Industry-specific maintenance management training yields positive results. Public maintenance management seminars are often generic and provide few ideas that have immediate application to the mining industry. Other attendees usually have little understanding of mining and cannot share any useful experiences. Expensive attendance fees often preclude attendance and associated travel costs further limit those who might attend. Some topics like ‘supervision’ may have universal themes but the chief janitor has little in common with the smelter foreman. Off-site courses can pull key personnel away from the operation for the seminar duration plus travel time creating a troublesome gap in essential control of work. The timing of potentially useful courses might be in conflict with shutdown schedules further limiting attendance. While specialized topics like condition-monitoring technologies have potential utilization, the factors of cost and absence may outweigh the value gained. Similarly, specialized reliability topics can be valuable but the absence of a maintenance program platform can preclude their useful implementation. And remote mining operations often cannot even consider off-site training no matter the topic or its potential value. Their response is no training no matter the urgency. The tradition of promotion from within ultimately to maintenance manager has produced dismal results primarily because no training is being provided. No public seminar or course can fill this need. This training must come from within. It must not only be industry–specific, it must be site-specific.   These factors were the incentive for creation of the Mining Maintenance Management Course. It mitigates all of these negative training factors by providing complete on-site maintenance management training available to all - - anytime - - without limits. See attachment.

Recommendations for More Efficient Maintenance Work Planning The amount of work that can be planned can be increased by 26% by establishing a logical equipment numbering scheme and standardizing work descriptions.   These recommendations are extracted from the Mining Maintenance Management Course. Courtesy - Paul D. Tomlingson

Forecasting is the identification of the most likely future time when major equipment components like engines, transmissions, pumps or conveyor drives may have to be replaced. It is not an automatic action in which, for example, a component is simply replaced after the accumulation of a certain number of operating hours or the passage of a number of weeks. This type of 'guesswork' can result in many 'perfectly good components' being replaced prematurely only to increase the rate of material consumption and its cost. Information extracted from Mining Maintenance Management Course. Courtesy of Paul D. Tomlingson

FORECASTING COMPONENT REPLACEMENTS How to Streamline Maintenance Planning and Scheduling   Forecasting is the identification of the most likely future time when major equipment components like engines, transmissions, pumps or conveyor drives may have to be replaced. It is not be an automatic action in which, for example, a component is simply replaced after the accumulation of a certain number of operating hours or the passage of so many weeks. This type of 'guesswork' can result in many 'perfectly good components' are being replaced prematurely only to increase the rate of material consumption and its cost.

“In 1533 a noblewoman in Calais presented a visiting grandee with a peculiar gift: her personal toothpick, which, she was eager to point out, she had used for seven years.” The visitor’s reaction was not recorded but this tale launched an unusual conference “dedicated to keeping things in good nick.” Held at the Museum of London, its observations were reported in the October 20th issue of the Economist. “Events about making new things are ten-a-penny but less common are events about keeping things as good as new. Maintenance is often dismissed as mere drudgery but - - repair is often trickier than making them.”  “Maintenance lacks the glamour of innovation and it is mostly noticed by its absence -- the tear in a shirt, the mold on a ceiling, the sputtering of an engine.” “It (wear and tear or ‘consumption of fixed capital’) is also more difficult to measure. Statisticians must estimate the lifespan of (assets) and make assumptions about how they deteriorate. Some are like light bulbs, which work well until they stop altogether while other assets were assumed to wear out in a straight line.”   These observations suggest that maintenance is a difficult to execute, measure or manage activity. But they also raise questions. Why is maintenance improvement a perpetual mining industry goal? Are enough of the right things being done to achieve necessary improvements? Do decision-makers know what to do? Is there acknowledgement that effective maintenance is the single most important guarantee of reliable equipment that can ensure a successful mining operation?      

“In 1533 a noblewoman in Calais presented a visiting grandee with a peculiar gift: her personal toothpick, which, she was eager to point out, she had used for seven years.” The visitor’s reaction was not recorded but this tale launched an unusual conference “dedicated to keeping things in good nick.” Held at the Museum of London, its observations were reported in the October 20th issue of the Economist (attached). “Events about making new things are ten-a-penny but less common are events about keeping things as good as new. Maintenance is often dismissed as mere drudgery but - - repair is often trickier than making them.”  “Maintenance lacks the glamour of innovation and it is mostly noticed by its absence -- the tear in a shirt, the mold on a ceiling, the sputtering of an engine.” “It (wear and tear or ‘consumption of fixed capital’) is also more difficult to measure. Statisticians must estimate the lifespan of (assets) and make assumptions about how they deteriorate. Some are like light bulbs, which work well until they stop altogether while other assets were assumed to wear out in a straight line.”   These observations suggest that maintenance is a difficult to execute, measure or manage activity. But they also raise questions. Why is maintenance improvement a perpetual mining industry goal? Are enough of the right things being done to achieve necessary improvements? Do decision-makers know what to do? Is there acknowledgement that effective maintenance is the single most important guarantee of reliable equipment that can ensure a successful mining operation?    

This Course is specifically designed to instruct maintenance personnel on maintenance management skills and - - help operations, staff departments and management support, cooperate with and direct the interdepartmental maintenance effort.   I have attached a Course description.   Paul D. Tomlingson, Mining Maintenance Consultant (Retired) Legion of Honor Member – Society of Mining, Metallurgy and Exploration (SME) Denver, Colorado USA [email protected]  

Complimentary Mining Maintenance Management Course - Maintenance is always more successful when operations, management and staff departments have a more comprehensive understanding of how maintenance works. Then their roles in the support, cooperation and direction of the interdepartmental maintenance effort can create the circumstances that can yield improvement. Education and training of operations, management and staff department personnel adds directly to the effort of improving maintenance.   Those who perform and control maintenance possess significant diagnostic and repair talent. But these skills do not automatically yield management skills. As a result, maintenance often struggles to limit downtime and meet equipment reliability needs. Within maintenance there are many capable personnel who could easily acquire essential management skills providing training and education are provided. The unfortunate reality is that no such training is being provided. Instead, the unfortunate practice of promotion from within does not always produce capable maintenance managers. Typically, an outstanding craftsman is, over time and attrition circumstances, promoted to maintenance manager. Through no fault of his own he had not acquired the requisite management skills for the job. Nor had training been provided. The end result is poorly managed maintenance that ultimately impacts mine operation performance. This oversight requires correction.   When effective maintenance education and training are available and accessible, those who can influence maintenance improvement will use it. Outstanding craftsman will aspire to efficient supervision and management.Operations managers will connect better maintenance to greater availability.Managers will realize cohesive interaction among departments to assure profitability. Complimentary Mining Maintenance Management Course - Over 600 Society of Mining, Metallurgy and Exploration (SME) member organizations are benefiting from the Mining Maintenance Management Course (see attachment) being offered as a complimentary professional courtesy. If you are member of SME you may access the course: Log into http://community.smenet.org Click: Browse then select link to Mining Maintenance Management Course Library. PPT course topics (01 – 22) appear with Word reference (MIT) files for each course topic. Select and download course topics to make them available to your personnel. If you are not an SME member, the course can also be made available for transmission to your organization. Please inquire.   Paul D. Tomlingson, Mining Maintenance Consultant (Retired) Legion of Honor Member – Society of Mining, Metallurgy and Exploration (SME) Denver, Colorado USA [email protected]                  

MAKING EQUIPMENT REPLACEMENT DECISIONS - The decision to replace production equipment as it nears the end of its life-cycle is both an economic and a performance decision. Economics are involved in the identification and procurement of the best equipment for the capital outlay constraints involved. Performance considerations are important in selecting the best equipment for the job. Chapter from Maintenance in Transition - The Journey to World Class Maintenance

Planning and scheduling maintenance work should follow specific procedures. Here are some suggested guidelines.

Planners are most effective when they plan the right work. Here are some recommendations for determining which work should be planned in your organization.

Maintenance evaluations and seminars carried out at 61 mining operations found a common need for documentation of maintenance operating details. We especially noticed that overseas operations using local nationals and ex-pats always had exceptionally good maintenance program documentation. As a result there were few interdepartmental coordination problems. They made efficient use of local personnel despite language barriers and achieved cohesive use of ex-pats despite their diverse backgrounds. We established that documentation of maintenance operating details assured the efficient conduct of internal maintenance activities. It also guaranteed a cohesive effort by all mining departments to support and cooperate with maintenance. And it provided well-informed management oversight. Our conclusion: When everyone in a mining operation knows what to do, how, when and why about maintenance, it is successful. A well-defined program creates an educated workforce to result in effective maintenance. This paper explains how.

Between 1972 – 2012 maintenance seminars were conducted on-site at 61 mining and mineral processing operations in Brazil, Canada, Chile, Colombia, Egypt, Indonesia, Ireland, Jamaica, Kyrgyzstan, Mexico, Peru, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, UAE and the US. Most types of minerals were mined and processed and coal extracted, cleaned and shipped. In these open-pit and underground operations maintenance workforces ranged from several hundred to over a thousand. Here is what we learned.

See how world-Class mining organizations conduct effective maintenance.

"Reliability – A measure of the capability of a unit of production equipment, process or circuit to operate at designed capacity within its specified operating envelope while adhering to prescribed maintenance requirements within a designated time period and meet established levels of product output or service duration."

This maintenance management course is unique to the mining industry. Its objective is to improve maintenance through the education of personnel at all levels of the mining organization. It represents over 40 years of direct, world-wide mining maintenance consulting experiences to provide proven, useful and practical improvement guidelines. Topics are logically arranged and emphasize the interdependence of maintenance actions, essential interdepartmental coordination and knowledgeable management guidance. The accompanying textbook reinforces the course and stands alone as a classic source on mining maintenance management to guide achievement of World-Class status. Inquires: [email protected]. Paul D. Tomlingson, Mining Maintenance Consultant Denver, Colorado USA Member, Society of Mining, Metallurgy ad Exploration (SME)

This paper expands on "What's Maintenance and What's Not." It explains and illustrates the techniques and procedures for successful management of non-maintenance projects.

This PowerPoint presentation explains why criteria are needed to determine which maintenance work should be planned.

Criteria for determining which maintenance work should be planned is explained in the PowerPoint presentation.

Guidelines for the Utilization of Contractors to Perform Maintenance and Capital Work

This widely-read and well-publicized article on Reliability Centered Maintenance is provided as a professional courtesy.

Ten guidelines explain how to improve planning and scheduling.