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Reliability centred maintenance (RCM) for heavy earth-moving machinery in

an open cast coal mine

Article  in  CIM Bulletin · November 2001

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 Technical Paper
Maintenance/ Reliability centred maintenance (RCM)
Engineering for heavy earth-moving machinery in
an open cast coal mine
B. Samanta, Asansol Polytechnic, West Bengal, India
B. Sarkar, Jadavpur University, Calcutta, India
S.K. Mukherjee, Birla Institute of Technology, Ranchi, India

KEYWORDS: Reliability centred maintenance
(RCM), Heavy earth-moving machinery, Main-
tenance, Availability, Coal mining.
Paper reviewed and approved for publication
by the Maintenance/Engineering Division of
CIM.
ABSTRACT
The availability of heavy earth-moving
machinery (HEMM) and its performance
depends upon the reliability and maintainabil-
ity characteristics of the equipment used. Fail-
ures of capital-intensive HEMM and their
consequences have a strong impact on produc-
tion cost. Operating costs of HEMM in its life-
time has a great role to play on effectiveness of
the preventive maintenance policy. Thus, main-
tenance decisions should not be made ad hoc
but should be related to failure pattern of
HEMM. Reliability centred maintenance (RCM)
based on probabilistic models results in opti-
mizing the maintenance programs with mini-
mum cost. RCM aims to determine the
maintenance requirements of equipment or a
system in a structured way.
In this paper, case studies of reliability
and maintainability of HEMM used in an open
cast coal mine in India are discussed based on
the principles of reliability centred maintenance
(RCM). An important conclusion has been
highlighted in order to optimize maintenance
strategies.
Introduction
In the recent past, coal mining technology
was mostly labour-oriented. It is now being
improved and in the present decade, there has
been a sea of change in open cast mining tech-
nology. More sophisticated, automated and
capital-intensive heavy earth-moving machin-
ery (HEMM) is now being used for meeting the
energy demand and profitability requirements.
Modern mining equipment is complex in design
and uses a large number of components or
items.
The availability of HEMM and its perform-
ance depend on the reliability characteristics of
the equipment used in open cast coal mines.
The concept of absolute inherent reliability of a
piece of equipment or item is a myth. There is
no such equipment or item which is completely
reliable with respect to work environment, sys-
tem of work or work activity; all are likely to
fail. Equipment performance depends on main-
tainability characteristics also. Failure of capi-
tal-intensive HEMM and its consequences have
a significant impact on coal production, pro-
ductivity and production costs of an open cast
coal mining operation. Failure of any HEMM
such as shovels, dumpers, dozers, etc., during
the working shift will lead to inevitable stop-
page of coal production which will result in a
loss of revenue. The operating costs of HEMM
in its lifetime has a great role to play in the
effectiveness of the maintenance policy.
Traditional maintenance programs in the
mining industry are often based on a combina-
tion of recommendations obtained from manu-
facturers, coal mine legislation and company
standards. These approaches are largely subjec-
tive and ineffective when trying to improve
machine performance or cost optimization
(Cooper, 1996). There is a need for another
maintenance strategy/approach to the mining
industry using mechanized, automated and
capital-intensive HEMM for cost reduction due
to the pressure of rising costs and global com-
petition. Under these circumstances, RCM
based on probabilistic models becomes an
effective tool in optimizing the maintenance
programs with minimum cost. In this paper, an
attempt has been made to study the reliability
and maintainability of HEMM used in an open
cast coal mine in India based on the principle
of RCM.

Bimal Samanta Bijan Sarkar S.K. Mukherjee

is a lecturer, Department of Mining obtained his B.E., M.E. and Ph.D. obtained his B.E. and M.E. degrees in
Survey, Asansol Polytechnic, West degrees in production engineering mechanical engineering from Jadavpur
Bengal. He obtained his B.E. in mining from Jadavpur University, Calcutta, University, Calcutta, India. He also
engineering from Calcutta University in India. He worked for Bridge and Roof obtained his Ph.D. degree from the
1984 and his M.Tech. in operations Co. (India) Ltd. and Steel Authority of Indian Institute of Management,
research from Burdwan University in India Limited (SAIL) for a short period. Calcutta, India. Professor Mukherjee
1993, and has his 1st class mine Dr. Sarkar is actively engaged in has been actively working in the field
manager certificate for coal. Mr. teaching and research at his alma of operations research, production
Samanta has more than a decade of mater. His fields of interest include management, ergonomics and non-
field experience as an executive in a reliability engineering, operations traditional machining systems in
large public sector opencast and research, artificial intelligence and Jadavpur University. He is currently
underground coal mine in India. He tribology. He has published more than working as vice-chancellor of Birla
has authored a number of publications 60 papers in international and national Institute of Technology (BIT), Mesra,
on different aspects on mining safety. His field of interest includes reliability proceedings and journals. Ranchi, India.
and maintenance of mining machinery.

104 CIM Bulletin ■ Vol. 94, N° 1056

 Reliability centred maintenance (RCM) for heavy earth-moving machinery

Table 1. Details of maintenance data of dumper, dozer and shovel

Dumper Dozer (In hours) Shovel
Reliability Centred Maintenance
1. Total operating time (h) A 7020 2722 5039
2. Total number of failures B 14 36 54
Maintainability and Availability and Failure 3. Total repair time (h) C 756 854 1697
Pattern 4. Mean time between failure (MTBF) A/B 501.6 75.61 108.13
5. Mean time to repair (MTTR) C/B 54 23.76 31.43
Reliability is a performance barometer of
Table 2. Cumulative TBF and cumulative frequency Table 3. Cumulative TBF and cumulative frequency for
overall machine condition. It is a built-in feature of number for dumper dozer
a machine. It can be increased by design effort
SI. No. TBF (h) CTBF (h) SI. No. TBF (h) CTBF (h)
and/or an addition of quality material or modifica-
1 101 101 1 96 96
tion. In doing so, the cost of the machine will 2 174 275 2 205 301
increase. This increase should be justified to com- 3 114 389 3 259 560
pensate for the cost of maintenance.There are two 4 272 661 4 239 799
types of equipment — non-repairable and 5 198.5 859.5 5 7 806
6 82.5 942 6 171 977
repairable. Most HEMM used in mines is
7 673 1615 7 203 1180
repairable.When a repairable HEMM equipment is 8 514 2129 8 50 1230
’up’( i.e., in working order), it is available for use. 9 27 2156 9 316 1546
When the HEMM is ’down’ (i.e., in non-working 10 1240 3396 10 174 1720
condition), it is unavailable for use for coal produc- 11 2400 5796 11 68 1788
12 188 5984 12 30 1818
tion.The availability of HEMM can be expressed as 13 76 6060 13 138 1956
follows (O’Connor, 1995; Bentley, 1999): 14 960 7020 14 53 2009
15 121 2130
Total uptime 16 65 2195
Availability = –––––––––––––– = 17 43 2238
Total test interval of failure. The main objective of RCM is mainte-
18 52 2290
nance cost reduction and benefits. It focuses on 19 60 2350
Total uptime the system’s function, functional failure, domi- 20 10 2360
–––––––––––––––––––––––– =
Total uptime + total downtime nant failure effect and their criticality (Moubray, 21 40 2400
1997). To obtain an optimal maintenance func- 22 18 2418
MTBF 23 22 2440
–––––––––––––– . . . . . . . . . . . (1) tion, RCM analysis has taken into account two 24 20 2460
MTBF + MTTR important aspects — type of maintenance task 25 18 2478
and optimal maintenance (PM) task interval. 26 32 2510
where MTBF is mean time between failure and In the case of HEMM, the type of mainte- 27 20 2530
28 8 2538
MTTR is mean time to repair. Availability nance decision should not be made on an ad hoc
29 22 2560
depends on MTBF, i.e., on the reliability of basis as problems occur but should be planned 30 20 2580
HEMM used. Availability can therefore, be with respect to the failure pattern of HEMM. 31 51 2631
increased by improving MTBF. It can also be Machines with early life, debugging period or 32 13 2644
seen from the expression that availability decreasing failure rate (DFR) will require break- 33 36 2680
34 18 2698
depends on MTTR. Availability can be increased down maintenance. Preventive maintenance is 35 4 2702
by minimizing MTTR using an effective mainte- required when the machine has a constant failure 36 20 2722
nance program (Bentley, 1999). Reliability and rate (CFR) during most parts of its useful life. In the
maintainability are related to availability, how- case of increasing failure rate (IFR) or wear-out
ever, mine management is more interested in period, predictive preventive maintenance (PPM) is tenance planning of HEMM. It is important to
the availability and maintainability of HEMM. essential. In general, four basic maintenance tasks, identify the pattern and occurrence of failure
It is established that most repairable such as scheduled overhaul, scheduled replace- with time. The maintenance data were col-
HEMM exhibits a “bathtub curve.” It character- ment, condition monitoring, and scheduled inspec- lected from the maintenance log book records
izes three phases of failure rates — i.e., tion, are considered the cornerstone of RCM. Once on shovel failure, dumper and dozer machines
decreasing failure rate (DFR) during the early the type of maintenance tasks are determined, in an open cast coal mine in the eastern part
period of life or infant mortality period, con- their optimal maintenance intervals can be evalu- of India for conducting failure data analysis of
stant failure rate (CFR) during most parts of the ated either by using condition monitoring devices machines. The duration of collected data for
useful life of the equipment, and increasing or by reliability analysis of the failure statistics shovels and dumpers is one year and for doz-
failure rate (IFR) during aging or wear-out life (Kumar, 1990). Optimal maintenance task intervals ers, six months. The main purpose of data
of the equipment. should balance the benefits and cost of mainte- analysis is to evaluate the maintenance
nance. Sometimes machine health monitoring by requirements for improving machine availabil-
Concept of RCM the installation of a condition monitoring device is ity. Repair time is considered to be equal to
a costly affair. In the next section, the failure of the time the machine is broken down.
RCM is a qualitative technique for devel- dumpers, dozers and shovels for determining the Using data from Table 1 and Equation 1,
oping the optimal preventive maintenance pro- type of maintenance requirement will be analyzed. we can calculate the following:
gram which will ensure inherent reliability of
machine operation. RCM can be defined as a MTBF 501.4
Dumper = ––––––––––– = –––––––– = 0.90
process or method used in a structured way to Case Studies availablility MTBF + MTTR 501.4 + 54 (90%)
determine the need for the preventive mainte-
nance (PM) of equipment in its operating condi- Failure data analysis plays an important 75.61
tion after proper evaluation of the consequence role in making a decision in regards to main- Dozer = ––––––––––– = 0.7611 (75.11%)
availablility 75.61 + 23.72

November / December 2001 105

 Reliability centred maintenance (RCM) for heavy earth-moving machinery

Fig. 1. CTBF vs cumulative frequency for dumper. Fig. 2. CTBF vs cumulative frequency for dozer.

Table 4. Cumulative TBF vs cumulative frequency number and TTT plot for shovel order
108.3
SI. No. TBF CTBF TBF l/n Si Ui Shovel = ––––––––––– = 0.7748 (77.48%)
1 104 104 2 0.0185 108 0.0185 availablility 108.3 + 31.43
2 51 155 3 0.037 161 0.0276
3 3 158 4 0.0556 213 0.0365
4 68 226 7 0.0741 366 0.0627
Time between failure (TBF) data col-
5 186 412 11 0.0926 566 0.0969
6 76 488 16 0.111 811 0.1389 lected in chronological order uses statistical
7 146 634 20 0.1296 1003 0.1718 analysis to determine the trend of failure, i.e.,
8 2 636 22 0.1481 1097 0.1879 to know whether a failure rate is increasing,
9 24 660 22 0.1667 1097 0.1879 decreasing or constant. The status of the fail-
10 333 993 24 0.1852 1187 0.2033
11 140 1133 24 0.2037 1187 0.2033
ure rate is obtained by plotting the cumulative
12 88 1221 27 0.222 1316 0.2254 time between failures (CTBF) against the
13 213 1434 29 0.2407 1400 0.2398 cumulative frequency of occurrence in a trend
14 171 1605 33 0.2593 1564 0.2679 plot. If the plotted curve is concave down-
15 165 1770 35 0.2778 1644 0.2816
16 16 1786 44 0.2963 1995 0.3417
wards, it indicates decreasing failure rate,
17 239 2025 46 0.3148 2071 0.3547 increasing TBF with time, and the machine is
18 77 2102 46 0.3333 2071 0.3547 improving. If the curve is concave upwards, it
19 91 2193 51 0.3519 2251 0.3855 means that the machine shows an increasing
20 186 2379 52 0.3704 2286 0.3915
21 33 2412 52 0.3889 2286 0.3915
failure rate. It indicates that the machine is
22 285 2697 54 0.4074 2352 0.4028 deteriorating with time and that TBFs are
23 46 2743 66 0.4259 2736 0.4686 becoming smaller with time. If the data indi-
24 52 2795 68 0.4444 2798 0.4792 cates linearity, then the data are identically
25 27 2822 76 0.463 3038 0.5203
and independently distributed (iid) in the time
26 4 2826 77 0.4815 3067 0.5253
27 219 3045 78 0.5 3095 0.5301 domain. Thus, it cannot be said whether the
28 11 3056 83 0.5185 3235 0.554 machine is improving, constant or deteriorat-
29 52 3108 88 0.537 3360 0.5754 ing. However, data can be further analyzed
30 24 3132 88 0.5555 3360 0.5754 using total time on test (TTT) plotting (origi-
31 109 3241 89 0.5741 3384 0.5796
32 35 3276 90 0.5926 3407 0.5835
nally developed by Barlow and Campo, 1975)
33 44 3320 91 0.6111 3429 0.5873 to determine the failure rate (decreasing, con-
34 95 3415 95 0.6296 3513 0.6016 stant, increasing) of the machine. If TTT is con-
35 54 3469 104 0.6481 3693 0.6325 cave upward, the machine is improving. If it is
36 237 3706 109 0.6667 3788 0.6487
37 29 3735 117 0.6852 3932 0.6734
concave downward, the machine is deteriorat-
38 83 3818 122 0.7037 4017 0.688 ing. If the plot is crossing diagonally many
39 117 3935 140 0.7222 4305 0.7373 times, the machine is going through constant
40 22 3957 146 0.7407 4395 0.7527 failure rate.
41 46 4003 150 0.7593 4451 0.7623
42 78 4081 165 0.7778 4646 0.7957
43 7 4088 171 0.7963 4718 0.808 Dumper Machine
44 150 4238 186 0.8148 4883 0.8363
45 22 4260 186 0.8333 4883 0.8363 Table 2 exhibits the details of a cumula-
46 122 4382 213 0.8519 5126 0.8779
tive plot of dumper machines working in mines.
47 66 4448 214 0.8704 5134 0.8793
48 88 4536 219 0.8888 5169 0.8853 Figure 1 shows the plot of cumulative time
49 89 4625 237 0.9074 5277 0.9038 between failures against cumulative frequency.
50 214 4839 239 0.926 5287 0.9055 The curve is concave downward and TBF is
51 451 5290 285 0.9444 5471 0.937 increasing with time indicating that the
52 20 5310 333 0.963 5615 0.9616
53 90 5400 439 0.9815 5827 0.9979 machine is improving. Therefore, the machine
54 439 5839 451 1 5839 1 requires breakdown maintenance.

106 CIM Bulletin ■ Vol. 94, N° 1056

 Reliability centred maintenance (RCM) for heavy earth-moving machinery

Fig. 3. CTBF vs cumulative frequency for shovel. Fig. 4. TTT plot for shovel.

Fig. 5. CTBF vs cumulative frequency for hydraualic system of shovel. Fig. 6. CTBF vs cumulative frequency for tranmission system of shovel.

Fig. 7. Fault tree of shovel machine.

Dozer Machine

Table 3 shows the details of failure data

of dumper machines. Figure 2 shows the plot of
cumulative time between failures against
cumulative frequency. The curve is concave
upward and TBF is decreasing which represents
the deterioration of that machine. Therefore, it
requires predictive maintenance to be strength-
ened.

Shovel Machine

Table 4 shows TBF and failure particulars

of shovel machines. The cumulative time
between failures vs cumulative frequency data
is plotted in Figure 3 for the shovel machine. It
exhibits linearity. Time between failures for
shovel machines is further analyzed by TTT plot- LEGEND
ting (Fig. 4) which indicates that the machine is 1. EF Engine failure 11. EBF Engine block failure
2. BF Bucket failure 12. CHF Cylinder head failure
in a constant failure rate as the plot is crossing 3. TF Transmission failure 13. PF Piston failure
diagonally many times. Preventive maintenance 4. B&CF Body & cabin failure 14. CF Crank failure
strategy is required for the machine. 5. TKF Track failure 15. SHF Shaft failure
6. HF Hydraulic failure 16. BRF Bearing failure
In order to identify important mainte- 7. SPF Static parts failure 17. TAF Tanks failure
nance tasks on the shovel under study, the 8. DPF Dynamic parts failure 18. FF Filters failure
machines have been partitioned into six sub- 9. BHF Bucket hydraulic failure 19. TUF Tubes failure
10. SF Steering failure 20. PUF Pumps failure
systems (Kumar, 1990): engine, hydraulic, track,

November / December 2001 107

 Reliability centred maintenance (RCM) for heavy earth-moving machinery

transmission, body and cabin, and bucket. Fail-
ure behaviour of these critical sub-systems has
a great influence on the availability or failure
pattern of the machine as a whole. If any one
of the sub-systems fails, the system will fail. A
fault tree has been developed for shovels (Fig.
7). It is found from failure data that hydraulic
and transmission sub-systems contribute to the
maximum failure. The failure data of these two
sub-systems are further analyzed graphically
using the trend plots in Figures 5 and 6, respec-
tively.
These two trend plots indicate that
hydraulic and transmission sub-systems are in
increasing failure rate and they require special
attention. The optimal preventive maintenance
interval for age replacement or major overhaul
can also be found out graphically from the TTT
plot taking cost data of in-service failure and
planned replacement of sub-systems.
Conclusion
Previously, maintenance actions were ini-
tiated on an ad hoc basis resulting in addi-
tional expenses. The unwanted expenses are
minimized as appropriate maintenance strat-
egy if RCM is taken into account. In addition,
the cost associated with information collection
for preventive maintenance based on instru-
ments and processors is not required, as fail-
ure data collected from field study or log
books are directly used for drawing appropri-
ate inferences.
For HEMM, the maintenance decisions
should be made based on the scientific analy-
sis of the failure pattern of the machine. Here
dumpers, dozers and shovels used in the
mine are exhibiting decreasing, increasing
and constant failure rates, respectively. The
dumper is in early life, the dozer is in wear-
out period and the shovel is going through
useful life, in the ’bathtub’ curve. The mainte-
nance strategies have been formulated
accordingly. The case study indicates that fail-
ure data analysis by graphical and analytical
techniques gives an efficient method for
analysis and evaluates the availability and
maintenance strategy of HEMM in respect of
cost and maintenance practitioners. For prof-
itability and obtaining a competitive advan-
tage, the failure data analysis of HEMM used
in mines is very helpful for optimal mainte-
nance strategy with minimum maintenance
cost. Again, RCM techniques suggested in
this paper are easy to comprehend and can
be executed by maintenance practitioners.
Complicated statistical concepts are not
required in this process.
References
BARLOW, R.E. and CAMPO, 1975. Total time on test
processes and its application to failure data
analysis. In Reliability and fault tree analysis.
Edited by R.E. Barlow, J.B. Fussel and N.D. Siga-
parwalla. SIAM, p. 451-481.
BENTLEY, J.P., 1999. Introduction to Reliability and
Quality Engineering. 2nd Edition. Addision —
Westly, p. 32-33.
COOPER, B., 1996. Maintenance strategy procedures
development and implementation. Mining Tech-
nology Jan, 78, p. 3-6.
KUMAR, U., 1990. Reliability centred maintenance
— A tool for higher profitability. Maintenance, 5,
p. 23-26.
MOUBRAY, J., 1997. Reliability Centred Mainte-
nance. 2nd Edition. Butterworth — Heinemann,
p. 6-20.
O’CONNOR, P.D.T., 1995. Practical Reliability Engi-
neering. John Wiley and Sons, p.11.

7th International Symposium

on Mining in the Arctic
March 30 – April 1, 2003, Iqaluit, Nunavut
First Announcement and Call for Papers
Abstracts due April 1, 2002

Symposium Overview Symposium Topics

The Seventh Symposium on Mining in the Arctic 1) Mining Industry Case Histories
will be held in Iqaluit, Territory of Nunavut, during the
early spring of 2003. Iqaluit, the capital of Canada’s 2) Mining under Hostile Conditions
newest territory, is easily accessible from Nuuk, Green-
3) Arctic Exploration Technologies
land, from Ottawa, Montréal, and Yellowknife, Canada,
and from other communities in Canada’s far north. The 4) Arctic Environmental Issues
pre- and post-symposium field trips will all depart from
Iqaluit. 5) Arctic Mining Regulatory Issues
A comprehensive technical program is planned. 6) Economics of Arctic Mining Developments
Social events will focus on local cultural and leisure
activities. Presentation of a paper at the Symposium is a
7) Decommissioning of Arctic Mines
requirement for its inclusion in the Proceedings.

Please Send Abstracts to:

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108 CIM Bulletin ■ Vol. 94, N° 1056

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