Vulcan Mozambique, a global mining company, owns and operates Africa’s largest coal mine at Moatize. Vulcan took on an aggressive target of increasing the met coal production by three times in 14 months. To meet this immensely challenging target, ramping up mine production was not enough, the capacity augmentation had to happen for the entire process flow, which means washplant and logistics had to be augmented in the same time period.

Subject of this case study is washplant uptime problem. To meet the increasing ROM production, washplant uptime had to be increased. Direct method was to clear the maintenance backlog of equipment’involved across 34 blocks (Eg: Crusher, Conveyors, Screens etc.) and 300 packages (Gear box changing of crusher).

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Challenges

• Obvious strategies wont work: Due to frequent breakdowns, preventive maintenance was not possible. The strategy was formalised to increase the maintenance hours in unplanned shutdown. But, this would only succeed if the parts were available for that particular package.
• No Control over strategy: Lot of packages were not getting executed due to lack of material readiness, and thus shutdown hours were getting wasted
• De-synchronization issues: No clear plan for clearing maintenance backlog with respect to available resources. Work was being planned on many packages simultaneously, while the actual execution was only done for 60-70% packages, because some or othe other material was missing for the package
• Resource unpredictability: During actual shutdown, resource requirement also could not be predicted because of the uncertainty in package readiness Implementation

Implementation

To address these challenges, Vulcan partnered with Realization Technologies, a trusted provider of project delivery solutions.

Highlights of the Implementation:

• Focus & Finish packages: Prioritised packages list was created based on criticality of equipment, current state and statutory requirements. Work in Progress of packages executed at anytime was maintained at maximum of 40 packages against a total of 82 packages
• Streamlined Execution through Contractor Onboarding: The contractors were onboarded with execution strategy to deliver 40 packages first and then if the time permits we can take on the balance packages. Material was delivered from store for only 42 packages.
• Streamliner – the enabler: To control execution, the entire process was automated on Streamliner. Streamliner provided reliable and transparent visibility at all levels to ensure the synchronization and bring out the bottleneck

Tangible Results

After 120 hours of shutdown:

• Actual shutdown hours was completed for 80/81 packages.
• Maintenance hours achieved was 40% more than planned
• Throughput of maintenance hours increased by 33% with the same resources as compared to last shutdown

Intangible Results

• Reduced Firefighting: Vulcan successfully managed the projects with lean project team and minimal support from Realization.

Conclusion

Through Realization’s project management solution, Vulcan successfully overcame resource shortages and unreliable projections. The software’s streamlined operations, resulting in timely project delivery and budget control. Vulcan now stands as a testament to the effectiveness of enabling companies to navigate complex expansions. The company is on path to achieve its ambitious growth goals, enhanced its project management expertise, and transformed its operations for sustained success. Vulcan continues to partner with Realization to complete the remaining projects.