FLSmidth harnesses the smarts of digitalisation to provide a crushing and screening offering that covers all bases.
The crushing and screening sector provides the resources industry with unique opportunities to reduce carbon emissions
and drive greater efficiency in its operations.
As one of the world’s leading original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) in the crushing and screening space, FLSmidth understands the importance of extending machine life, delivering greater operational consistency and achieving efficiency gains as a result.
While the design of a machine is key to extending plant life, operators must also ensure they have the right accessories for those machines.
Image: FLSmidth
FLSmidth offers some of the most advanced gyratory, jaw and cone crushers on the mining market, but these products can’t perform at their best unless they are fitted with the right liners.
FLSmidth’s crusher liners unlock increased wear life and equipment reliability, while simultaneously driving down operational expenditure for customers.
“It goes hand-in-hand with production, but FLSmidth’s liners are designed in such a way that they can perform well over a campaign,” FLSmidth senior mechanical engineer Chris Muller told Australian Mining. “Any crusher has a product sizing distribution that comes out. If you can optimise that product sizing for longer, then you’re not only making the crusher more efficient but enabling downstream processes to be more efficient, too.
“This is where the selection and optimisation of liners is key.”
Equipment selection is also an important consideration in achieving greater operational efficiency.
“We’ve had instances where we might supply, for instance, one large crusher rather than two small ones, as this might be a more efficient option overall,” Muller said.
“These types of conversations are happening quite a bit now with our customers. A lot of it’s around efficiency and the life of the machine and making the most out of each campaign.”
As part of its MissionZero strategy, FLSmidth is working with its mining customers on a partnership model to provide end-to-end solutions that aim to achieve zero emissions, zero water waste and zero energy waste by 2030.
This model sees FLSmidth meet with its mining partners on a monthly basis, brainstorming ways to optimise for today and the future. Muller said this enables FLSmidth to anticipate a customer’s next obstacle before it even comes up.
“A good example is our crusher liners,” Muller said. “Based on previous performance, we already know how long the next liner is going to last and what the limitations are with that.
“We are able to give our customers a heads up before issues arise, rather than waiting for them to come to us. This is all part of employing that partnership model with our customers.”
Image: FLSmidth
FLSmidth’s partnership model has gone hand-in-hand with a boosted workshop capability, where the OEM has a stronger local presence to attend to customers’ operational concerns.
“The greater workshop capability has been a good win for us in the last six months or so,” Muller said. “With machines getting larger, we need to keep up with it and make sure we’ve got the right service on offer.
“This gives customers the ability to have work done by an OEM to an OEM standard, which is a high-quality service. This is in contrast to having work done elsewhere or on-site, which could be completed by a non-OEM and the quality might be compromised or they might not have the right gear.
“We try to focus on high-quality service and giving customers confidence that they’ve got a refurbished unit which is good to go and meeting current needs.”
Having such a close relationship with customers has enabled FLSmidth to create a transparent environment for communication and idea-sharing, which has brought rise to some of the company’s most inspired innovations.
This includes a spider hook for FLSmidth’s range of gyratory crushers.
“Removing a spider from a crusher has traditionally been a manual process, with people having to go down and put slings around the spider to remove it, which can sometimes be unsafe,” Muller said.
“One of our customers came to us and flagged the problems they were having and asked if there was a better way to do this. So we went away, put together a plan and kept the customer involved, and we came up with a novel design for a hook that could be used to remove or replace the spider remotely, to overcome safety concerns and make the job easier and quicker to do.
“We recently delivered a spider hook for one of the larger crushers in the Pilbara and we are finding this relates to other customers as well, with one also sold into Europe.”
Image: FLSmidth
FLSmidth has also engineered a unique solution to help customers avoid unplanned downtime for their vibrating screens on-site. The Screen Motion Analyser V2 (SMAv2) has become a core component of FLSmidth’s asset-health service offering.
According to FLSmidth regional product line manager – classification and centrifuges John Owen, the SMAv2 unit can be quickly and easily attached to a screen in four locations, generating real-time insights into a screen’s operating performance.
“The SMAv2 doesn’t replace the full vibration analysis (VA), which should be completed as part of commissioning or regular health checks and signed off by our engineering team, but it’s a handy tool to have on-site to quickly identify any potential issues before they become major problems,” Owen told Australian Mining.
“It will flag if a screen is operating outside of FLSmidth specifications, for example, generating incorrect RPM (revolutions per minute), irregular stroke or excessive sideways displacement.
“As soon as a screen is out of a certain frequency, or the sideways displacement gets too much, that’s when fatigue can creep in and you may start to experience failures of structural components.
“The SMAv2 tells customers, ‘maybe there’s an underlining issue or something wrong with your screen. You need to investigate further’.”
Image: FLSmidth
SMAv2 reports can be emailed to an FLSmidth product specialist, and the OEM can review and advise customers on next steps. This could involve FLSmidth representatives visiting a site to conduct a VA or detailed inspection.
Customers can easily monitor SMAv2 findings through an Android or iPhone app.
The SMAv2 is one aspect of FLSmidth’s asset-health service offering, which is an end-to-end data-driven solution for optimising production processes, improving operating efficiency, and maximising asset performance.
Whether it’s a gyratory crusher, horizontal mill, rotary screen, or any other crushing and screening product, FLSmidth’s asset-health service allows customers to feel confident in the health and performance of their plant, with any risks acted on before they become material.
This feature appeared in the February 2024 issue of Australian Mining.
