Mining in Unique Times

Solutions Helping Mines Stay Competitive

Today, a successful tire management program on a mine site is about more than changing tires: it’s about using insights, highly skilled technicians and an eye on uptime at every touchpoint—from inspections and repairs to maintenance planning and inventory management—to reach targets.
Until now, tire management reporting focused on looking back, to indicators such as performance, repairs and inventory. At a time when productivity and cost are most important to the success of a mine, many mine operators are considering how a data-driven approach could help their sites work more efficiently and achieve critical fleet uptime and tire investment targets.
In 2019, Kal Tire’s Mining Tire Group rolled out TOMS, a proprietary Tire Operations Management System designed to help mines improve machine availability and maximize tire investment. Two years later, teams are using TOMS’ insights in new and increasingly important ways in these times.  
“Total tire management is imperative to our customers’ operations, and TOMS is a productivity tool that allows us to focus on planned work because fleet availability is critical,” says Dave Allan, vice president, Mining Tire Group Canada. “Mines also can’t have capital tied up in inventory, and using TOMS provides the ability to plan for inventory and make decisions that keep equipment running.”
For example, Kal Tire has been using TOMS data for a customer in northern Ontario to plan a site-specific rotation strategy that will improve spare tire availability and productivity.
Sending equipment out with the best tire for the application is also an important first step in extending tire life. Using top tier tires also means customers can take advantage of solutions, such as custom retreading, to keep tires in production and benefit from like-new performance and cost savings. Kal Tire’s Oshawa retread and repair facility has been producing the highest quality retreaded tires for Ontario customers for more than 40 years.
Repairs are a mining tire management solution that is seeing innovation and provides significant value. Kal Tire recently opened a repair shop for a northern Ontario customer so injured tires could be repaired locally instead of being shipped to a distant facility. In addition to keeping equipment running, repair and retread solutions save tires from scrap piles and help companies reduce their carbon footprint.
With a comprehensive tire management program that aligns with goals at every stage of tire life, both open pit and underground sites see greater efficiency and value.

 

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