Capital Equipment News January 2018

COVER STORY

PPC Slurry and Scania South Africa recently celebrated the delivery of the new Scania mining tippers.

One of the major improvements is the provision of a double hydraulic cylinder, which addresses safety concerns relating to the instability of the bin.

of the specific customer in mind,” says Ad- ams-Kruger, adding that Scania Mining does not produce a mining vehicle, “we produce a mining solution”. Key improvements As Govender explains, the first major im- provement was the enhanced substruc- tures of the bin to be able to absorb the impact of the material thrown into the bodies. “The material used is suited to real heavy duty mining. The projected life of body has also greatly improved through addressing all the stress points in the bin,” says Govender. According to Niemand, this approach will allow the new bodies to last longer than the previous ones. “The bin has been made stronger and we believe it will last between two and three chassis,” he says. A second major improvement is the provi- sion of a double hydraulic cylinder, moving away from a single-cylinder approach on the previous versions. “The dual hydraulic cyl- inder approach has improved both speed of tipping and stability, mainly addressing the customer’s safety concerns around the single hydraulic cylinder,” says Govender, adding that this stops any side movements or side articulation of the truck body. Meanwhile, to reduce carrybacks, the new body has been engineered with a “bath tub” effect, which allows for smooth flow of material. The new bins also come with a new tailgate design. The previous buckets didn’t have a tail end, and when tipping at the crusher, there was a lot of spillage on the sides. With the new design, material is pushed far back and dumps at the centre of the crusher, doing away with flow spillage and resultant clean up duties. “Remember when you have this sort of spillage, at one point you need to stop the crusher to clean up, and the downtime related to that is just out of question,” says Govender. The innovative design features of the bin have already manifested themselves in a

number of gains for PPC Slurry. Niemand says the time it takes to tip with the new trucks has significantly improved, compared with the older versions. Cycle times have im- proved; it now takes a minute faster to tip at the crusher and come back for reloading at the loading point. Drivers are also much com- fortable with the double hydraulic cylinder, with no instability concerns to worry about. Growing together Scania and PPC Slurry’s relationship is a true reflection of the fact that gone are the days when equipment designs were based on a one-size-fits-all approach. PPC Slurry has been closely involved in the development of Scania’s mining solution in the local market, and Niemand believes that the lessons learnt here will help develop a solution that will eventually benefit the local mining fraternity at large. Anders Friberg, general manager – Vehi- cle Sales & Export at Scania South Africa, says PPC’s expansion of its Scania mining tipper fleet creates a good footprint for the OEM in its quest to grow this solution in the local market. “We are grateful to have some serious big customers like PPC. This is testimony that we are building that nec- essary credibility when customers such as PPC see value in our solutions,” says Fr- iberg. “We have created a partnership, not just a customer-supplier relationship. We sit around the table and openly and honestly discuss the strengths and areas of improve- ment,” says Govender. Niemand is also very impressed with Scania’s seriousness in growing its mining solution in the local market. “We have a monthly meeting with Scania. We open- ly discuss and iron out any problems we might have. One thing for sure is that these guys really walk the talk. Anything we sug- gest is quickly done. For us, that’s real ser- vice,” concludes Niemand. b

Charnie-Lee Adams-Kruger, key account manager – Mining at Scania South Africa (left), hands over the keys to Amos Mabetha, engineering manager at PPC Cement.

Ruben Govender, key account manager – Mining at Scania South Africa (left), hands over keys to Amos Mabetha.

Anders Friberg, general manager – Vehicle Sales & Export at Scania South Africa (left), hands over keys of the new vehicles to Amos Mabetha.

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