Maintenance/ Engineering Best-in-class maintenance benchmarks in Chilean open-pit mines P.F. Knights * , The University of Queensland, and CRCMining, Brisbane, Australia, and P. Oyanader, IGT, Santiago, Chile KEYWORDS: Maintenance, Benchmarking, Performance, Efficiency. Paper reviewed and approved for publication by the Maintenance/Engineering Division of CIM. ABSTRACT In 2001, the Catholic University of Chile undertook a maintenance benchmarking study of six open pit copper mines having mill capac- ities varying between 18,000 t/d and 156,000 t/d, and collectively responsible for 58% of Chilean copper production. This paper describes the methodology used to conduct the study, as well as the overall results. Key per- formance indices were selected to measure the effectiveness, efficiency, and development of the maintenance process. Using a balanced scorecard philosophy, these indicators were divided into client satisfaction, financial, inter- nal process, and learning and growth indices. Maintenance was found, on average, to be responsible for 44% of mine production costs. Percentage planned maintenance of equipment fleets was found to be low by world standards, averaging 35%, 56%, and 44%, respectively, for blasthole drill, shovel, and haul truck fleets. Fleet availabilities were found to be significantly influenced by the percentage of planned maintenance achieved, while mainte- nance cost per equipment was found to decrease non-linearly with increases in percent- age planned maintenance. Investment in tech- nical training (including planned maintenance practice) was found to be low by global stan- dards. The paper concludes that fleet availabil- ity and maintenance costs in Chilean open pit operations could be considerably improved by improving and/or developing maintenance planning standards, and investing in training personnel in planned maintenance techniques. Introduction In today’s capital-intensive mining indus- try, maintaining high equipment availability, utilization, production, and quality (or yield) rates is vital to the financial performance of mining companies. Equipment maintenance and repair (referred to hereafter as mainte- nance) play a vital role in assuring productive capacity and equipment capability. Due to a lack of publicly available bench- marks, in order to identify opportunities for improving current equipment management strategies, mining companies should partici- pate in maintenance benchmarking studies. These studies involve comparing the mainte- nance performance of mines operated by the same owner (internal benchmarking); compet- ing companies with a mutual interest in sharing data (competitive benchmarking); or compa- nies operating in different industry sectors gen- erally acknowledged to be industry leaders in maintenance (functional benchmarking). Since equipment operating parameters can vary markedly from one mine to another, an essen- tial element of benchmarking studies is to find ways for eliminating bias in the data to enable accurate comparison, the so called comparison of “apples with apples.” In 2000, the Mining Council of Chile (Consejo Minero a.g.) agreed to assist the Min- ing Centre of the Catholic University of Chile in undertaking a competitive benchmarking study of key maintenance performance indices in Chilean mines and concentrator plants. The chief executives of the 17 companies that then formed the membership of the Mining Council were approached with regard to participating in the benchmarking study; eight mines decided to participate. All eight mines pro- duced copper as the principal product. Since one mine exclusively used underground extrac- tion methods and another mine submitted data in an aggregate manner that made it impossi- ble to separate mine and mill performance, the maintenance performance of the six remaining mines employing open pit mining methods were benchmarked. In order to maintain the commercial confidentiality of the participants, the names of these mines cannot be published. In the study, they are referred to by letters as mines A to F inclusively. The milling capacities of these mines varied between 18,000 t/d and 156,000 t/d, and in 2000, the six mines were collectively responsible for 58% of Chilean copper production. Study Objectives The objectives of the benchmarking study were fourfold: • Ascertain the relative importance of main- tenance as a percentage of mine production costs; • Identify the leaders in mine maintenance performance and determine their associ- ated best-in-class performance indices; • Identify global improvement opportunities for the Chilean mining industry; and • Identify specific improvement opportunities for participating companies. This paper outlines the methodology used and principal findings associated with the benchmarking study. Benchmarking Methodology The first task in any benchmarking study (beyond identifying the potential participants) is to determine which performance indices to compare (Watson, 1993; Camp, 1994). Consid- erable differences exist in the number and type of indices measured by companies. Some com- panies measure only the basic indices, whereas others have determined additional perform- ance indices to be useful. It is therefore neces- Paper 30 June/July 2005 CIM Bulletin TECHNICAL PAPER Peter F. Knights holds a Ph.D. in mining engineering from McGill University, a M.Eng. in systems engineering from the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology, and a B.Eng. in mechanical engineering from the University of Melbourne. He was recently appointed Principal Research Fellow with the Division of Mining and Mineral Processing Engineering at the University of Queensland and program leader, smart mining systems, for CRCMining in Brisbane, Australia. Patricio Oyanader holds a M.Sc. degree in mining engineering and a B.Sc. in industrial engineering from the Catholic University of Chile. He is a principal consultant with the management consulting firm IGT, in Santiago, Chile. His current work focuses on process and product innovation in a wide range of industries, including mining, manufacturing, energy, and transportation. June/July 2005 1 * This study was undertaken while Dr. Knights was employed at the Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile.