Quantifying the life cycle cost of a high pressure grinding roll in a mineral processing plant

M.Phil. (Engineering Management)Abstract: The accelerated advancement of technology and the global economic crisis has prompted the need to improve equipment efficiency, reduce unpredicted equipment failures and operating costs in order to improve production and profitability. An emerging research trend around 2008 showed growing concerns on stringent availability performance constraints, specifically system reliability. Increasingly, further attention is directed to Life Cycle Cost (LCC) of equipment with an objective of identifying key factors affecting both system availability and LCC. Furthermore, the trend extended to focus more on understanding the equipment’s operational and maintenance costs which are driven by the system and component specific maintainability as well as required replacement time. This also include the understanding of the LCC concept, available LCC models, implementation of LCC analysis within an organization and the benefits thereof, as well as ways of quantifying LCC through the use of existing calculation formulae. It also echoed the importance of the data availability and quality which provides a solid foundation to the success of the LCC analysis. Hence, the aim of this research is to quantify the LCC as well as to determine the major cost drivers of the High Pressure Grinding Roll (HPGR) during its operating and maintenance life cycle for a period of four (4) years using existing LCC models. The research is presented in the form of a case study which is selected as an appropriate method of investigating empirical research for a real life problem or situation. The case study is based on the HPGR which has been in operation since 2007. The HPGR is currently installed and operating within a mineral processing circuit for one of the largest platinum group subsidiaries in the world. In order to address the above research objectives, an in-depth investigation on the operating and maintenance cost, intervals, break-down occurrences, spare parts supply, overhauls, archive documents and consumables was necessary. These values were then used an inputs into the derived model for processing and yielding outputs. From the results, the LCC was quantified for a period of four (4) years. The results indicate that the LCC during operation and maintenance phase was significantly higher than the acquisition cost. Furthermore, the result also indicate that the LCC which considered time value of money portrayed a linear increase and is lower than the LCC calculated based on the actual costs. This is possible due to a number of reasons: the unexpected number of equipment failures, maintenance strategies and the fact that LCC based time value of money does not consider imperfect maintenance conditions. It is evident that maintainability and reliability management must be regarded as a vital part of a corporate strategy. Successful implementation of this strategy is reliant on the “buy-in” of senior management which in turn will ensure organizational market share and competitive advantage is maintained