1. On-site performance
Typical symptoms on site
- A filter, belt, sensor, or small electrical part may be the only issue, but the site still has to shut down while waiting for personnel, parts, and diagnosis.
- Maintenance time is delayed again and again until high temperature, low oil pressure, starting failure or abnormal alarms appear in a concentrated manner.
- After the maintenance personnel arrived at the scene, they found that tools, spare parts, and historical records were missing, so they could only temporarily disassemble and inspect the equipment and then reorder.
- Production, dewatering, and camp power all rely on the same generator-set system. When a small fault stops it, the site immediately shifts into coordination and waiting.
2. Risk causes
Root cause in the power-system design
Many mine sites focus on whether the generator set can be purchased and started, but do not treat common spare parts, maintenance intervals, and on-site repair support as part of the power-supply plan.
Downtime in remote mine sites is often not caused by the repair itself, but by the time extended by fault confirmation, spare parts search, procurement, transportation and personnel arrival. If a small item breaks, if the site is not prepared, it will turn into a wait of several days.
Without a maintenance plan, filters, belts, oil, cooling systems, batteries, sensors and control electrical components will be left unused, and small problems will accumulate and eventually turn into major shutdowns.
3. Scope of influence
Production, fuel, maintenance, safety and environmental risks all grow
- The production line stops, drainage, communications, lighting or camp electricity may also be forced to downgrade, and on-site management pressure rises rapidly.
- Temporary procurement of spare parts and external maintenance costs more, transportation is slow, and quality and adaptation may not be confirmed immediately.
- Delayed maintenance accelerates generator-set wear, raising fuel consumption, alarms, and later fault counts.
- Faults that could have been handled in a few hours turned into days of downtime and production loss due to gaps in spare parts and maintenance plans.
4. How to avoid before construction
What to confirm before procurement or expansion
- Before putting into production, prepare common spare parts according to the unit model and operating hours. Do not wait until the first shutdown to start looking for filter elements, belts, sensors and electrical parts.
- Write the maintenance cycle into the on-site operation plan, and make it clear who records, who inspects, who replaces, and who is responsible for spare parts inventory.
- Prepare basic maintenance tools, common consumables, key electrical components and supply response methods for key units, especially in remote mine sites, leaving a margin in advance.
- Put the maintenance plan and the production plan together to avoid postponing maintenance in order to meet the production volume and eventually being forced to stop due to failure.
5. On-site confirmation information
Site information needed for an engineering review
- Existing or planned unit model, serial number, operating hours, daily operating hours and load conditions.
- A spare parts list is currently available, including filters, belts, oil, sensors, controllers, AVRs, pumps and electrical components.
- Past fault type, downtime, waiting time, maintenance personnel arrival time and maintenance records.
- The distance from the mine site to the service point or spare parts warehouse, road conditions, the impact of rainy season and on-site staffing.
