Following the success of its first Site Services satellite office in 2000 in Rustenburg, South Africa, to provide machine specific technical support and a rapid response to its end-users in the area, FLSmidth has established a second Site Services satellite office in Mookgophong (formerly Naboomspruit) and is presently in the process of moving this concept into other African countries. More such offices are being evaluated for mining development hotspots such as Mozambique, Ghana and Tanzania. Each of these offices will be self-sufficient in terms of having a specialised tool trailer and a strong OEM knowledge base across its personnel complement.FLSmidth Site Services activities form an integral part of FLSmidth’s Customer Services Department, offering a complete range of on-site services to help maximise plant availability.
“Site Services is all about limiting plant downtime and optimising processes,” Tony Girodo, Site Services Manager at FLSmidth South Africa, says. “More and more clients, particularly those in remote areas of Africa, are focusing on keeping their plants running at peak levels, rather than to respond to breakdowns after the fact. From our point of view, as a single source provider, FLSmidth also aims to take an increasingly active position in the operation and maintenance of our equipment at customer sites throughout the life cycle of the equipment.
“Last year our teams successfully completed more than 800 jobs of this nature at customer sites focused on limiting failures, which effectively reduced downtime at these plants in the long run.
“When customer sites are running smoothly, the question is sometimes asked why our Site Services activities continue to be necessary. Yet it is these very services that are keeping the plant operating as it should. If equipment availability is high, then we regard it as a job well done, achieving a high return on the clients’ investment into pre-empting any problems, compared with the high cost of unscheduled shutdowns.”
The Site Services team comprises seasoned FLSmidth engineers backed up by the full force of the FLSmidth’s global pool of technical expertise as well as access to global R&D and the latest innovations. Girodo says these local engineers are able to contact other group engineers based around the globe on a 24/7 basis “Phone a Friend”, allowing the team to consult on and rapidly resolve any atypical equipment and process related issues, if necessary.
The team’s broad-ranging knowledge covering majority of FLSmidth equipment including winder and hoists; crushers, both cone and gyratory; minerals and cement mills; girth gears and pinions for both minerals and cement; flotation cells; filtration systems; thickeners; clarifiers; stacker reclaimer systems and coolers. All the equipment can be audited, serviced, repaired and upgraded by FLSmidth Site Services, in accordance with recommendations to suit the client’s needs.
FLSmidth Site Services also carries out full installation of all its propriety plant equipment, and this can be done in various modes from supervision through to the complete installation.
“Our team does a lot more than conduct inspections and generate reports,” Girodo comments. “These engineers actually determine what has gone wrong or what is about to fail, and do the repairs right there and then, if the appropriate spares and time are available. On larger installations and repairs, we assist plant personnel with their planning to ensure that the necessary spares are ordered in good time and that the programme for the work is detailed and realistic. We have a large installed base of equipment at many of these sites and this makes it easy for our specialists to inspect the entire process flow and observe the upstream and downstream effects.”
Engineers from FLSmidth’s South African Site Services team are also frequently deployed to support the global team in places as far afield as Armenia and the United Arab Emirates.
“Where Site Services engineers are contracted by clients in other African countries from our corporate head office in South Africa, we ensure that a suitable number of our personnel have up-to-date visa’s that allow them to be available on short notice,” Girodo says.