MechChem Africa November 2019

⎪ Materials handling ⎪

As the regional centre of excellence for the manufacture of vibrating equipment, FLSmidth also has local manufacturing capability for exciter gearboxes.

At its Delmas Supercenter, FLSmidth has installed a robot welding cell that can produce welded steel frames for its polyurethane screen panels in 30 seconds.

look for the lowest cost option. This is particu- larly acute in themid-tiermining sectorwhich doesn’t have large global backers underwrit- ing its investments. “We have takenour polyurethane product line and modernised it to make it sufficiently cost effective thatwe can serviceall sectors of themarket.We believe that themid-tiermin- ing sector has been neglected in the past, and this investmentwill go a longway in rectifying that,” he predicts. The number of mining licenses being awarded to mid-tier mining companies is changing the industry in South Africa and North of our borders. “As an OEM, we are determined to create the infrastructure to better service this sector,” Kruger adds. Walker continues: “Polyurethane panels are high volume wear parts that need to be identical to eachother. Eachpanel has aweld- ed steel frame that is covered with polyure- thane. It used to take a skilled welder about five minutes to weld the frame and a further three minutes for loading and unloading the jig.Wehavenow installeda robotwelding cell that can produce these frames in 30 seconds, giving us excellent productivity, repeatability and economies of scale,” he says. “We used to have five welders doing this job, but we have nowupskilled them forwork in other areas, such as the fabrication of our Wedge Wire dewatering baskets,” he says. TheWedgeWireproductionmachineuses stainless steel wire with a wedge profile. This is spiral welded and then flanged to form a basket, typically with ½ mm apertures to a 50 μm tolerance. These baskets are pre- dominantly used for dewatering in the gold mining sector. Describing refurbishment work, Walker notes that the Supercenter typically manu- factures and installs replacement panels and side liners and, when necessary, refurbishes exciter gearboxes. “We are able to disas- semble, assess and rebuild exciters to OEM specifications and we have our own exciter test bed to ensure that performance require- ments are being met.”

With respect to new builds, Kruger notes that these are currently for export, most recently to Kazakhstan, Turkey and Norway. “As the regional centre of excellence for the manufacture of vibrating equipment, we have developed local manufacturing capa- bilities for our exciter gearboxes and for the screens for Kazakhstan, which were locally manufactured in South Africa,” Walker re- veals. Three double-deck horizontal screens with isolation frames and rolling frames have alreadybeenshipped toKazakhstananda fur- ther four are currently being manufactured. “Wehave total control over thedesignand manufacture of every component, which is a distinct advantage in thatwe canoptimise the configuration of the screen, the exciters and themedia panels tooffer simplifiedoperation with seamless panel replacements and equip- ment servicing. Kruger adds: “People say that low-cost imports are a threat to our business, but we are finding ways to compete from a quality and cost perspective with imports from any country in the world. In addition, we can still drive exports through our European offices

and attract customers from remote and far- away places such as Kazakhstan.” Being a premium supplier, FLSmidth needs to invest inR&Dand value engineering processes. “All over theworld there arework- shops that will pirate our products for supply into our own aftermarkets. We need to stay ahead of these counterfeiters by constantly improving our solutions, refining assembly procedures and simplifying maintenance,” saysKruger, adding that theSouthAfricanop- eration is continuously feeding ideas back to FLSmidth’s central R&D facility in Denmark. “We at FLSmidth are very customer fo- cused. As well as achieving lowest TCOs, we strive to improve availability, uptime, returns on investment and customer sustainability and profitability. This is at the heart of our business and, therefore, strategic investment is unlikely to stop,” concludes Kruger, adding that the Delmas Supercenter has already taken the decision to further invest in new equipment for the manufacture of polyure- thane products, such as latest-generation rotor and stator technology to optimise the performance of its flotation cells. q

The Supercenter has modernised its polyurethane product line to make it sufficiently cost effective to service all sectors of the market, including the mid-tier mining sector.

November 2019 • MechChem Africa ¦ 13