1. Sofia, 2013
Survey and Improvement Tool for Mobile Mining Equipment
Maintenance Management
Georgi Atanasov, MEng
U/g Mobile Equipment Mechanical Supervisor
Dundee Precious Metals Chelopech EAD
georgi.atanasov@dundeeprecious.com
Assoc. Prof. Yuri Alkalay
School of Management
New Bulgarian University
yalkalay@nbu.bg
Preface
This Survey and Improvement Tool is an
innovative approach designed to boost the
maintenance performance. In applying the Tool
it would be logical to start with defining ‘where
we are’ and then determine ‘where we want to
get’, along with the results we want to achieve,
and then focus on the factors that contribute to
achieving the desired results. The Tool is aimed
at improving the equipment reliability, safety,
availability and related costs – all of which are
the priority and goal of the Mobile Mining
Equipment Maintenance Management.
1. Maintenance as a system.
The Tool examines the maintenance
organization and management as a system,
describing the elements of the system (See
Fig.1) with the corresponding relations between
them.
Fig.1. Elements of the system
The description of the maintenance system
includes many examples of best international
practices and maintenance related standards.
The following features are covered in defining
each of the eleven (11) elements of the system:
• Maintenance Vision and Strategy /
Considers what we need to achieve through
the equipment maintenance, why it is
necessary for the business and how to
achieve it.
• Organizational Structure / Helps align
individual employees and their skills with
the business processes in the organization
to deliver the results required by the
customer (Production) and stakeholders.
• Human Resources / Provides the
competence and skills required for
equipment maintenance.
• Knowledge Management / Helps maximize
the efficient use of the knowledge within the
organization, providing alternative options
for acquiring new skills and knowledge.
• Maintenance Methods / Defines
maintenance methods and optimized
approaches to their implementation.
• Materials Management / Deals with
equipment manufacturers, suppliers of
spare parts and anything related to the
materials required for the equipment
maintenance.
• Partners / Regulates the contractors’
participation in both the maintenance tasks
and development and improvement of the
maintenance management system.
• Reliability Engineering / Assists in analyzing
maintenance related issues by putting the
issues on paper and using past experience,
followed by corrective actions to improve
reliability.
• Infrastructure and Tooling / Identifies the
infrastructure, tools and technologies
needed to meet the maintenance
requirements.

2. Sofia, 2013
• Planning and scheduling / Defines
maintenance tasks in a time schedule or
using relevant units of measure (e.g. Motor
hours or mileage).
• Performance measurement / Shows where
the maintenance management actually
stands against the objectives and provides
an opportunity for a follow up analysis to
see if there is any room for improvements.
2. Levels of maturity.
Levels of maturity have been defined for each of
the system elements, enabling a comparison of
the Company with the best practices and
companies in the mining branch in order for the
Company to decide where it stands on each
element of the maintenance system (See Fig. 2).
The self-assessment comparison covers all of
the eleven (11) elements of the system and uses
a six-point scoring scale. The ‘step by step’ rule
is applied, i.e. the conditions of Maturity Level 1
must be fully met before going to Level 2. The
compliance with this rule will ensure that a clear
indication of what needs to be improved is given
before you go to the next levels, making it
possible to identify relevant alternative options
on the journey towards world-class
maintenance.
Fig.2. Levels of maturity
3. Assessment and improvement process.
The assessment and improvement process will
take five successive stages together with the
corresponding steps related to each stage:
Stage 1 / Co-initiating: Presenting the idea,
planning the survey, setting up a survey group
and communicating the project.
Stage 2 / Co-sensing: Organizing trainings and
project presentations.
Stage 3 / Co-presencing: Conducting the survey,
reaching consensus in the group and compiling
a report with the results.
Stage 4 / Co-creating: Prioritizing alternative
options, improvement plan, communicating
and implementing the plan.
Stage 5 / Co-evolving: Monitoring the progress
and planning the next survey.
This process will allow company employees to
take a survey of the system and define
alternative options for improvements, making
these employees the owners of the process and
thus substantially reducing any resistance to the
implementation of the improvement plan.
A good option would be to align the survey
implementation with the annual target setting so
that information from the survey was available
when setting the targets prior to drafting the
operating and capital budgets.
4. Benefits from applying the Survey Tool.
The application of the Survey and Improvement
Tool will allow:
• The process participants to become familiar
with the best international practices and
standards for mobile mining equipment
maintenance.
• Effective identification of maintenance
strengths and weaknesses that need
improvements.
• Effective identification of appropriate
actions for improvements.
• To raise the level of awareness and
improve the communication across the
company. Employees will acquire better
understanding of the company they work
for, making them aware of any
improvement and development issues the
company is facing.

3. Sofia, 2013
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