| Results: Iron ore port and rail system |
At a time of growing demand and record ore prices, a major iron ore miner was unable to meet demand due to a number of bottlenecks in the supply chain from mines through the rail network and out of the ports.
The team increased throughput by 35% in 12 months by identifying and improving key drivers of system reliability throughout the supply chain - particularly in car dumper performance and rail yard management.
The team commenced at the ports, initially focussed on increasing reliability of car dumpers, including identifying and prioritising remedial action on sources of loss, management of a pipeline of improvement initiatives through to completion, prioritisation of sustaining capital to maximise risk mitigation on older dumpers, and completion of post-commissioning of new dumpers.
When dumpers ceased to be the practical bottleneck, the project scope expanded to include:
- Increasing out-loading capacity by increasing stacker-reclaimer reliability and improving stockpile design and management
- Improving shutdown management of dumpers, stacker-reclaimers, and shiploaders
- Eliminating train breakaways by both optimising dynamic loads in the dumpers and improved targeting of wagon maintenance and coupler replacement regimes
- Analysing the comparative performance of each dumper against each ore grade to optimise the allocation of products in order to increase capacity
- Understanding the total system dynamics, identifying the impact of all sources of variability and ensuring correct prioritisation of improvements to average performance versus eliminating outlier events
- Increasing rail system capacity by improving yard management; changing scheduling to reduce queuing; introducing a block maintenance regime for wagons; reducing brake car faults; clarifying roles and accountabilities between train controllers and yard controllers; and introducing improved KPIs
Client achieved:
- Increasing overall weekly tonnage rate by 35%
- Improving dumper reliability (90th percentile of dump times) by 60 minutes from 280 minutes to 220 minutes
- Reducing average yard time per train from 7.5 hrs to 5.5 hrs
- Increasing full length trains (cars per train) from 40% to 98%
- Increasing load factors on trains (tonnes per car) by 7.5%
- Increasing ship loading rates
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