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Maximising Value Through Maintaining Your Flotation Equipment


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Author B Murphy, S O’Connell and J L Heath
ID P201409008


In the 1989 best-seller The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, the author, Stephen Covey, highlights the importance of maintaining not only ‘production’, but also, ‘production capacity’. When operating a modern flotation concentrator, production is often measured in terms of concentrate tonnage, tonnes milled and plant utilisation. There are very few metrics that focus directly on flotation equipment condition in relation to performance, which is analogous to Covey’s production capacity principal. It is evident on many mine sites that flotation equipment condition is not monitored on a proactive basis and that the prevailing culture is to wait for a failure, before addressing an issue.

This paper discusses examples of how poor equipment condition can lead to production loss through poor metallurgical performance. Actual examples are given where these problems have occurred in operating plants. An outline is provided on how metallurgical and maintenance departments can work together to protect production capacity and gain more from existing equipment.


Murphy, B, O’Connell, S and Heath,
J L, 2014. Maximising value through maintaining your flotation equipment, in
Proceedings 12th AusIMM Mill Operators’ Conference 2014 , pp 71–76 (The Australasian Institute of Mining and Metallurgy: Melbourne).