Kinross Tasiast’s continuous improvement (CI) and mobile maintenance departments have teamed up to develop and implement two new CI initiatives that are saving the mine approximately $250,000 per year.
In 2019, the mobile maintenance team noticed that replacing halogen lights on the CAT 793D trucks had contributed to 146 hours of down-time over the course of the year. The lights were designed to have a battery life of 1000 hours and the team needed to find a solution to reduce downtime. They worked together and found an alternative LED light that has a battery life of 50,000 hours – 50x longer than the halogen lights! They began implementing the new lights in January 2020 and are expected to save the operation $150,000 per year.
After the LED lights were installed, the teams began analyzing additional ways to reduce downtime on trucks. The reliability team identified mirror failures among one of the top reasons for lost-time, as operators would need to visit the maintenance shop for adjustments. They then worked on developing an alternative design that installed hand-adjustable brackets for operators to make changes without support of a mechanic.
This initiative is expected to reduce down time and save the mine approximately $100,000 per year, with 63% of trucks already utilizing the manual adjustment unit and the remaining trucks expected to have the unit installed by Q3 2021.
Do you have an idea or suggestion that can improve our global operations? Big, or small, we are always interested in finding innovative ideas that can be implemented across our sites. For Continuous Improvement Ideas at your site, please contact your CI Manager. For Innovation ideas, please visit our submission form here.
