Operations research based maintenance practices for opencast mining equipment

Operations research (OR) has had an increasing influence on engineering and applications in industries and other spheres of economy during the last thirty-five years. The maintenance practices operate under a philosophy of accurate planning and forecasting effective preventive maintenance and performance management. Poor maintenance practices lead to underutilization of opencast mining equipment (OME), low productivity of opencast mines and inadequate safety for miners. Effective maintenance practices for OME are very much required for increasing the overall productivity of opencast mines. Preventive, corrective and condition-based maintenance practices are relevant with respect to maintenance of OME. An attempt has been made in this paper to highlight the necessity of adopting OR based maintenance practices