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"The Upper Mannville unit commonly consists of interbedded marine and non-marine sands and shales, but in northwestern Alberta the unit consists of marine shales of the Spirit River Formation. A thick tongue of marine shale (Clearwater Formation) ex-tends eastward into the Athabasca area below sandy Grand Rapids beds. Correlation of Upper Mannville rocks to the southeast is difficult, but in the Cold Lake area a thick sandy depositional cycle (Mannville ""C"" of this paper) appears to be approximately correlative with the Clearwater Formation. In the Lloyd-minster region, tongues of marine sedimentary rock occur in the lower part of the Upper Mannville unit. Most of the Upper Mannville oil occurs in the Grand Rapids Formation at Wabasca, in the thick ""C"" unit and younger Mannville sands at Cold Lake, and in the Sparky and General Petroleums sands of the Lloydminster region (Figure 2).The Lower Mannville unit was deposited on an erosional surface of considerable relief that truncated the Jurassic and older strata of the Western Canada basin. Continental, probably fluviatile, sedimentation persisted over much of the Western Canada basin during deposition of the Lower Mannville unit, but an Arctic or Boreal sea lay over part of northern Alberta. At the end of the depositional episode, the sea transgressed southward and eastward (Figure 3) and re-worked the Bullhead and McMurray sands of northern Alberta into the glauconitic Bluesky and Wabiskaw sands. Topography on the sub-Cretaceous erosion-al surface had a considerable effect on the deposition of the Lower Mannville (Rudkin, 1965), and the highest hills on this surface were not completely on-lapped by Lower Mannville sediments (Figure 3). The coarser elastic material was derived both from a western Cordilleran region and from an eastern Canadian Shield region (Glaister, 1959, p. 620; Mellon, 1956)."

Jan 1, 1966

By T. S. Heah, S. T. Bishop

"The Lorraine property is located in the northern Intermontane Belt, north-central British Columbia. The property is underlain by intrusive rocks of the Duckling Creek Syenite Complex, an Early Jurassic, alkaline phase of the Late Triassic-Early Cretaceous Hogem Batholith. Two significant zones of copper-gold mineralization have been explored to date; the Main zone (historical Upper and Lower deposits) and the recently discovered Extension zone. A combined geological resource was estimated in 1975 for the Main zone deposits at 10 million tonnes averaging 0.7% Cu, and from 0.1 g/t Au to 0.34 g/t Au. The Extension zone, still at an exploration stage, is estimated to be considerably smaller than the Main zone.Copper-gold mineralization at Lorraine Mountain exhibits characteristics suggestive of both magmatic and hydrothermal origins, and may be related to orthomagmatic-hydrothermal fluid flow contemporaneous with magmatism and development of migmatitic fabrics. A depth greater than the depth of formation of classical porphyries may explain many of the variations displayed by mineralization at Lorraine. These characteristics distinguish Lorraine from other members of the alkalic suite of porphyry Cu-Au deposits in the Canadian Cordillera.IntroductionThe Lorraine prospect is located in the Omineca Mountains, at the headwaters of Duckling Creek, 56 km northwest of Germansen Landing (Fig. 1). The property is centred at latitude 55°55'N, longitude l25°26'W on NTS mapsheet 93N/14W. The area is typified by mountains of moderate relief, with elevations ranging from 1150 m in the valleys to peaks of 2000 m. Valleys are U-shaped and blanketed by glacial till which give way to steep, talus covered slopes and sharp ridges. Outcrop is generally limited to elevations above 1600 m (Fig. 2)."

Jan 1, 1995

By O. A. Bascur

Several new hydrometallurgical plants have been built in the past years, new processes and equipment as well as advanced process control systems are being used to deal with the increasing requirements of safety, quality and production. Plant Information Management Systems are now being recognized as a key infrastructure component of the plant, giving the management, the operators, process engineers, finance, maintenance, and regulatory agencies an integrated view of the operation and providing the links for the (increasingly) multidisciplinary organization. This paper reviews several implementations of Plant Information Systems; real time performance management infrastructure examples are reviewed as a key component of business strategies, such as Mine to Port Planning and Supervision, Metallurgical Mass Balances, Solvent Extraction Composition Statistical Process Control, methods to minimize organic losses, reduce variable costs and to improve metal extraction. Several examples are provided to illustrate how companies are using the real time and historical information from assets and metallurgical processes to enable and empower people to improve the operations quality, safety and throughput, as well as continuous improvement and innovation initiatives.

Jan 1, 2007

By Edward Sampson

Bases of National Power At a time when the economy of the world is in a particularly troubled state it is appropriate to examine some problems of the distribution of natural resources. I should like particularly to call attention to the remarkable increasing demand for natural resources, to give an analysis of the demand for certain mineral resources, and to direct attention to some problems in satisfying this demand. All industrial power is based on natural resources and the most basic of these are soils, energy resources, and mineral resources. There is a strong interrelation of these resources, more than is obvious, and I shall take up certain aspects from the point of view of a geologist. Few nations are well endowed with all three of the kinds of natural resources I have mentioned and much has been done by some small countries whose peoples are industrious and enterprising and where conditions for free world trade have been favourable. However, major industrial power is dependent on a substantial endowment of all three classes.

Jan 1, 1949

By Ahmad Ghahreman, James McNeice

"Cerium is the most abundant rare earth metal and is often found in deposits along with small amounts of more valuable metals such as neodymium and gadolinium1. As a result, the production of cerium oxide often exceeds market demands, thus in some cases it would make more sense to remove the cerium from the process solutions before further purification. A common method of cerium removal is to precipitate CeO2 from the acidic leach liquors by raising the pH to oxidize cerium(III) to cerium(IV). This study investigates the oxidation kinetics using three oxidants; hydrogen peroxide, sodium hypochlorite, and potassium permanganate. The effect of oxidant, pH, cerium concentration and temperature on the oxidation kinetics will be discussed. Cerium oxidation in solutions with pH ranging from 1.0 to 4.0 was investigated at cerium concentrations ranging from 2.0 g/L to 16.0 g/L. A cerium recovery of 40% can be achieved at different conditions with each oxidant at room temperature, with higher recovery at 60°C.INTRODUCTION Over the last 70 years, the rare earth elements (REE) have become crucial components of modern technology. These metals are categorized as light rare earths (LREE) or heavy rare earths (HREE) by governments and miners based on weight, abundance, and therefore value. The minerals bastnaesite, monazite, and xenotime compose the majority of the world?s exploitable sources of these metals (Binnemans, 2013; Parker and Baroch, 1971). Geologists classify the LREE ores as „cerium group? minerals, approximately 50% cerium oxide by weight. The cerium group minerals monazite and bastnaesite compose the majority of world production, leading to an overproduction of cerium relative to world demand. This ratio of light to heavy REE in deposits has led to a phenomenon referred to as the balance problem (Binnemans et al., 2013). As an example, to produce 1 tonne of europium oxide from a bastnaesite deposit 450 tonnes of cerium oxide must be processed. This means that any push to increase production and access the value of the HREE metals will drive down the value of the LREE metals leading to diminishing returns (Zepf, 2016). These ores also contain measurable levels of thorium, subjecting them to complex radioactive waste regulations. During the 20th century, the USA was the largest producer of rare earth metals (REMs), primarily sourced from the Mountain Pass mine in California. However, due to a combination of market dynamics and regulations, China has dominated the market for the last two decades. The largest Chinese REE mine, Bayan Obo, produces rare earth (RE) concentrate as a byproduct of iron mining, decreasing their relative production costs (Gupta and Krishnamurthy, 2005). This mine alone represents about half of world bastnaesite production (Zhi and Yang, 2014). Rising demand for high-tech products has forced Chinese producers to commission other large mines, climbing to 90% of world production in the early years of the new millennium (Mancheri, 2016). This presents the west with a looming supply risk of these critical metals in the future."

Jan 1, 2017

By B. Damjanac, S. Maxwell, D. Chorney, M. Grob, F. Zhang, J. Hazzard

"A hybrid discrete-continuum numerical scheme is developed to study the behavior of hydraulic fractures crossing natural fractures. The fully coupled hybrid scheme utilizes a discrete element model for a core domain, within which the hydraulic fracture propagates and interacts with natural fractures, and a surrounding continuum domain to better approximate boundary effects. The results show that the behavior of hydraulic fractures crossing natural fractures is affected by a combination of factors. Nevertheless, three fundamental crossing scenarios can be identified from all of the simulations: no crossing, partial crossing, and direct crossing. Each crossing scenario has a distinct injection pressure history which may suggest guidelines for interpreting field hydraulic fracture injection data. Additionally, the capability for these models to generate synthetic microseismicity makes them appealing for the integration of microseismic field data with the reservoir geomechanics for ultimately providing a practical engineering tool for improvement of well completion and stimulation. The model is capable of examining and verifying four different shear deformation mechanisms associated with a propagating hydraulic fracture. The natural fracture can fail solely due to the stress perturbation of the passing hydraulic fracture or it can fail due to a combination of stress and pore pressure changes across different types of interaction scenarios. The simulations also illustrate that the level of fracturing complexity increases as the number and extent of the natural fractures increase. INTRODUCTIONAlthough hydraulic fracturing technique has been applied extensively as a reservoir stimulation technique in the oil and gas industry for over 60 years (Economides & Nolte, 2000), it is one of the key factors promoting the shale gas boom in the past decade (King, 2010; International Energy Agency, 2014). The hydraulic fracturing of shales can be differentiated from hydraulic fracturing of conventional reservoirs by the fact that shale formations often have a pre-existing discrete fracture networks which greatly impact the hydraulic fracture propagation. Based upon field production data as well as microseismic observations, it is believed that so called “fracture complexity” may result from interactions between a created hydraulic fracture and pre-existing natural fractures and planes of weakness (Warpinski, 2009; Maxwell & Cipolla, 2011)."

Jan 1, 2015

By J. D. Christian

WHEN mining development began in the Kirkland Lake camp, twenty-five years ago, there was very little information obtainable from surface showings as to the nature of the ore deposits. A length of almost a mile of the main 'break' lay under the south arm of the lake, and elsewhere most of the outcrops were covered with glacial drift. Shafts were sunk on ore-bodies of uncertain value, either on the outcrop of the veins or-because of the lake to the north-in the south or hanging-wall. In the second year of the camp's development, the Great War broke out and retarded progress for its duration. He would have been a real optimist who, in those early years, could have foreseen mining at depths of more than a mile.

Jan 1, 1939

By S M. Roscoe

Relationships of Noranda sulphide deposits to volcanic rocks are reviewed and chemical variations within the volcanic sequence are described. The assemblages of minor elements in the pyrites and pyrrhotites of the Noranda and l\llatagami deposits are similar and are characterized by a high content of cobalt, tin and other elements. Isotopic compositions of lead, other geochronological data and stratigraphically disposed zonal distributions of sulphides and minor elements indicate that the deposits were formed prior to folding and metamorphism. Lead isotope data indicate that the Matagami deposits, and several others, were probably formed about 2.95 x 109 years ago and that the Noranda deposits may be about 50 million years younger. The volcanic sequence at Noranda is younger than the thick sequences bordering it on the east and on the west. The relationships are consistent with the hypothesis that these strata-bound sul1>hide de-posits are coeval with their associated volcanic rocks. T HE writer has been engaged in a metallogenic study of the region between Sault Ste. Marie and Chibougamau. An essential objective of this study is the classification of mineral deposits with regard to their composition, form, geological

Jan 1, 1965

By Louis Frost

"1N 1951, the Dominion Steel and Coal Corporation, as part of a programme of modernization in their coal mining operations at Sydney Mines and Glace Bay, Nova Scotia, undertook the development of two large cross-measure tunnels, which were to be used for the purpose of raising the coal from the underground workings by conveyor belts direct to wash plants located on the surface.These tunnels were to reach from the surface to central loading points underground located at a depth of 600 and 900 feet, respectively. They were to be driven on a pitching gradient of 11 degrees to the horizontal, and they were to reach a length of 3,600 feet in the Sydney Mines area and 10,000 feet in the Glace Bay area.The longer tunnel, 19 feet in diameter, was driven a distance of 1,500 feet and, for domestic reasons, bas not yet been •completed. The other tunnel, in the Sydney Mines area, 18 feet in diameter, is steel supported and concreted throughout its entire length. This tunnel has been completed and will be in operation at an early date.The development of this particutar tunnel posed an additional problem, as the rock through which it had to pass was considered to be water-bearing. In the sinking of Princess Colliery shafts in 1866, a great deal of water had been encountered, and it had been necessary, while sinking, to line the shaft with cast-iron tubbing through the water-bearing strata. The shaft had to be lined for a depth of 300 feet at the upper end. It was anticipated that we would meet with difficulty in driving the tunnel through this strata."

Jan 1, 1955

By G. M. Dunn

Pressure leach autoclave circuits are employed in the leaching of ores, concentrates, mattes, alloys and intermediates for the recovery of metals into solution. Once the metals are extracted into solution the value metals can be recovered by hydrometallurgical means such as by purification followed by electrowinning, hydrogen reduction, pyrohydrolysis, crystallisation and other unit operations. In many of these integrated flowsheets the pressure leach step is pivotal to the recovery of the value metals from the host material. In an expansion or a new project, a large component of the capital cost can be associated with the pressure leach step and process engineers frequently look for opportunities to mitigate costs. This paper examines a new route for increasing the capacity of an exothermic pressure oxidation leach for sulphide concentrates, sulphide and phosphide mattes and alloys.

Jan 1, 2004

By H. Mindivan

In the present study, the feasibility of recycling AA6061 Al alloy chips by a combination of ciyomilling, cold compaction and hot extrusion processes was investigated. Furthermore, the effect of Al powder addition to the recycled Al alloys chips on the mechanical properties was investigated. The characterization of recycled Al alloys was made by structural examination and mechanical tests (hardness, compression and dry sliding wear tests). The results indicated that by increasing wt. % of Al powder added to the recycled Al alloy chips the studied properties (the density, hardness, compressive strength and wear resistance) increased due to reduction of porosity in the recycled Al alloys.

Jan 1, 2011

By Philip W. Johnson, Charles D. Haynes

"Abstract - The coalbed methane industry has become a prominent source of domestic natural gas, with its technology having evolved over the past 30 years. Whereas most coalbed methane wells are able to produce without major interruption over their economic lives, wells operating in an underground mining area are subject to being mined-through. If mine-through occurs, the productivity of the well is at least compromised, and may even be terminated. The economic consequences of mine-through may be relatively simple if mineral ownership and extraction rights are common for the coal and coalbed methane. However, if ownership is not common and a superior coalbed methane lease exists, the coalbed methane ownership must be compensated for lost production caused by mine-through. This paper presents a relatively straightforward method to calculate the value of the lost production caused by the mine-through. It uses technology from mining and petroleum engineering, as well as simple economics and financial management techniques.Sommaire - L’industrie de la production de méthane houiller est aujourd’hui une source importante de gaz naturel domestique dont la technologie a considérablement évolué au cours des trente dernières années. Bien que la plupart des puits de méthane houiller peuvent être mis en production durant l’entièreté de leur vie utile sans interruption majeure, les puits implantés en périphérie de mines souterraines sont sujets à être recoupés par ces dernières. Un tel recoupement peut compromettre, ou même mettre fin à la production d'un tel puits. Les conséquences économiques du recoupement par une mine souterraine peuvent être relativement simples quand les droits miniers et les droits d’extraction sont détenus en commun pour le charbon et le méthane houiller. Si toutefois ces droits ne sont pas détenus en commun et qu’il y a eu octroi d’une concession de méthane houiller de qualité supérieure, les détenteurs du méthane houiller doivent être compensés pour la perte de production résultant du recoupement par une mine souterraine. Cet article présente une méthode relativement simple pour calculer la valeur des pertes de production suite au recoupement par une mine souterraine. Cette méthode fait appel aux technologies de l’industrie minière et pétrolière ainsi qu’à des techniques simples d’économie et de gestion financière."

Jan 1, 2006

By L. M. Lowe, D. B. Chambers, D. G. Feasby

"The presence of the naturally occurring radioactive elements uranium and thorium in rare earth (RE) resources can present challenges in achieving regulatory and social acceptance. The discovery and awareness of radioactivity in mineral resources radioactivity typically generates strong public intuitive responses that may be project prohibitive; a significant proportion of such resources contain radioactivity.The objectives of this paper are to demystify the presence of uranium and thorium in RE resources and to demonstrate how a RE project can be safely developed, operated and closed from a radiological perspective. Radioactivity in RE resources is principally thorium-based. Thorium is interesting and challenging from a metallurgical perspective – one of those stubborn metals commonly assessed as refractory. Thorium is difficult to mobilise into solution and easily precipitates out. Thorium is a common element in the earth’s crust – about 10 ppm on average, and natural geophysical systems conclusively demonstrate its immobility. Specific mine tailings contain elevated levels of thorium, but the contained thorium is neither a significant ecological nor a personal hazard.Waste management for a hard rock rare earth project includes the management of mineral processtailings, waste rock, and metallurgical residue. Proven strategies are available for tailings and waste rockfor all climate conditions. The management of the metallurgical residues is potentially more challenging.Example robust strategies for addressing these challenges are presented.A potential way to reduce the radioactivity of rare earth metallurgical wastes is to selectively remove uranium and thorium. Uranium oxide is readily marketable, but its concentration as a byproduct typically triggers extensive regulatory processes. Thorium is presently not marketable, but may be so in the not-too-distant future with the development of thorium-based nuclear energy. The pro’s and con’s of uranium and thorium byproduct recovery are summarized."

Jan 1, 2016

By T. G. Joseph, A. Chamanara

ABSTRACT: The chicken and egg scenario — where adverse truck motions cause ground deterioration and poor ground profiles cause adverse truck motions — is a downward deterioration spiral dominating our industry. If we remove one action, the reaction stops. A simple truck to excavator load data analysis and wireless communication system is outlined, which will provide visual assistance to the excavator operator in achieving improved load placement and balance in a truck body. This will reduce subsequent hauler duty cycle adverse motions and g levels that contribute to structural fatigue, higher tkph, reduced tire life, and ongoing maintenance of haul roads.

Jan 1, 2012

By G. G. Hatch

FOLLOWING World War II there was an urgent need for the development of domestic sources of ilmenite to take care of the expanding needs of the titanium dioxide pigment industry. In addition, there was the interest by the pigment manufucturers and others in titanium metal. Prior to the war the pigment industry in the United States had obtained its major tonnage of ilmenite, analyzing 55- ?60 per cent Ti02, from India. However, as a result of the shipping situation which developed during the war, the pigment manufacturers had to consider the use of lower grades of ilmenite located on this continent .and several companies undertook extensive exploration programmes to locate and develop such orebodies. Probably the most significant deposit that was found as a result of these ?programmes was the orebody .at Allard Lake, Quebec, owned by the Quebec Iron and Titanium Corporation. This ?Company was formed in 1948 by the Kennecott Copper Corporation and the New Jersey Zinc Company to mine this ilmenite ore and treat it in electric furnaces to produce titanium dioxide slag for the pigment industry and iron for the steel industry.

Jan 1, 1956

By T. H. Patching, D. F. Coates

The Sub-Committee on Rock Classification, Canadian Advisory Committee on Rock Mechanics, has evolved a classification of rocks which should prove useful in studies of rock mechanics. Considered in two stages -actual rock substance and rock mass -the five-point classification involves the geological name of the rock, the rock strength and rock deformation, and, in the second stage, the gross homogeneity of the rock mass and the formation continuity.

Jan 1, 1968

By A. A. Holland

Introduction The world's largest known deposits of natural sodium sulphate (Glauber salt), generally termed 'alkali ' throughout western Canada, are located in the Province of Saskatchewan: reserves are estimated to exceed 200,000,000 tons. These are surface deposits resulting from the recent or present-day natural evaporation of brines, in which respect they are similar to those occurring in certain other parts of the world, as in semi-arid sections of the United States, Russia, Germany and Austria. In some areas, underground deposits formed hundreds of thousands of years ago have been _encountered in drilling, and indications are that they also were formed under arid or semi-arid conditions. The master key to the formation of deposits of natural sodium sulphate, wherever they occur, is a climate, either past or present, under which evaporation exceeds precipitation over a considerable period of time. Commercial development of the Saskatchewan deposits began about thirty years ago. Previously, the demand for sodium sulphate had largely been met by salt cake produced as a by-product in the manufacture of hydrochloric acid from common salt. The rapid increase in the production of Kraft paper and, more recently, the development of synthetic detergent materials, have caused a marked increase in the market for sodium sulphate. This chemical gives the extra toughness to Kraft paper and is used in detergent compositions in proportions as high as 75 per cent. Saskatchewan now has six commercial plants producing natural sodium sulphate. Production from each in the fiscal years 1947 and 1948 is shown in Table I. The newest and latest plant is that of Saskatchewan Minerals, at Chaplin, which 1s designed to produce up to 150,000 tons of salt cake, 98.5 to 99.5 per cent pure, yearly. This is equivalent to about 24 percent of the total United States production of crude commercial salt cake for 1947.

Jan 1, 1949

By E. Quaquero

This article reports on the current state of an ongoing research project which is aimed at implementing intelligent models for hardly predictable hazard scenarios identification in construction sites. As past evidences showed that no programmatic action can deal with the unpredictable nature of many risk dynamics, we tried to survey on how the current approach for safety management in the construction industry could be improved. In our previous research the use of Bayesian networks elicited from subjective knowledge were preliminarily tested. Those networks might be meant as a reliable knowledge map about accident dynamics and they showed that a relevant ratio of occurrences fall in ?hardly predictable hazards? class, which cannot be warded off by programmatic safety measures. This paper reports the second outcome of our research project, which focused on the development of first elementary fragments, regarding the occurrence of a possible ?hardly predictable scenario?. Instead of experts? contributions (who, over their carrier, seldom incurred in accidents), we used ?legal cases? as an accurate source of information. They suggested which categories of ?hidden hazard scenarios? are more likely to happen. We found that the most frequent hidden hazard scenarios are linked to operator?s negligence and abnormal behavior, e.g. irregular removal of scaffolding?s components, unprotected openings, improper use of PPE, etc. Every pattern determined by legal cases has been formalized by a fragment (i.e. elementary network) of the overall Bayesian network. Finally, all the elementary networks were integrated into a comprehensive intelligent tool for realtime hardly predictable hazards prevention. The final setup, asked for interfacing these intelligent models to a low-level sensor network and used to feed them with inputs about the current state of the context, is discussed too.

Aug 1, 2013

By P. V. Amosov, V. A. Masloboev, D. V. Makarov, S. G. Seleznev, A. A. Baklanov

"The development of industry and intensive use of natural resources leads to a significant decrease in the share of reserves of rich ores, deposits of which have nearly all been exploited. Large amounts of displaced rock mass are accumulated, significant emissions of gas and dust from mining, dust from dumps and tailing pits, ingress of chemicals and toxic elements in surface and groundwater all can have negative effects on existing ecosystems and human health. Especially dangerous is the impact in Arctic regions with extreme climate conditions. The maintenance of overburden dumps and tailings dams requires significant capital and material costs. In this paper, some mining enterprises of the Murmansk region, in the Russian Federation, consider the environmental problems of the industry and propose some solutions.INTRODUCTIONThe safety of environment during the extraction and processing of minerals is a very acute problem throughout the whole world. The problem acquires a specific character in the Russian Federation. There, rather poor minerals, often existing in unconventional forms and including several mineral components are processed. The Russian mineral base has a specific geographical location; most of the deposits under operation are located in the Subarctic or Arctic regions, as well as in Siberia and in the Far East. Vast amounts of rock waste and tailings pose serious economic and ecological problems in mining regions. The operation of overburden heaps and tailings requires considerable capital and material costs. The dumps withdraw vast lands from potential commercial use. Large amounts of mined rock disturb the existing geological balance; emissions of gas and dust which accompany the mining operations, dusting of waste heaps and tailings, emissions of reagents and heavy metals into natural surface and ground waters all can produce negative effects on existing ecosystems and human health."

Jan 1, 2016

By K. Musgrave

"The ISO 9000 Quality Management System Standards have become internationally accepted as the way to manage quality assurance. The author has developed a Maintenance Management System Standard using ISO 9001as a model and is working with a major basemetal mining company to implement this. This paper describes the structure of the standard and the steps required for its implementation.Using a management standard ensures that a system is maintained, reviewed by internal audit, and when instances of failing to follow the procedures (nonconformances) occur, that corrective action is taken. It also ensures that regular reviews are made and that the sys-tem is continuously improved.The Standard is designed so that if an organization decides to register to an ISO 9000standard, the Maintenance Management System will be in a format that is compatible and can be incorporated with little effort into the Quality System.IntroductionIn reviewing maintenance operations at many mining companies, and often seeing those same organizations some years later, two recurring issues have been noticed..The first issue is how dependent effective maintenance is upon individual supervisors and crews. In one situation, a mine that had an excellent maintenance system in the 1980s. Now, with new supervisors and crews, it is starting to develop a system that will bring it back to where it once was. No written procedures remain from the earlier excellent system.The second issue is that most operations feel that maintenance is the sole responsibility of the maintenance supervisors and crews. Nothing could be further from the truth. Maintenance, like safety, is everyone’s responsibility. If the operator does not report problems and perform daily checks, and if the production supervisor runs equipment until it fails, then nothing the maintenance crew does will prevent emergency breakdowns and lost production. More importantly, equipment will be operated in unsafe conditions, putting employees at risk and, with today’s regulations, leaving supervisors open to prosecution.The Maintenance Management System outlined in this paper is designed to establish the present best practices as standard procedures, to provide a continual review so that these practices are improved in the future, and to identify instances where the system fails so that corrective action is taken. The mine referred to above is using this approach to make sure that, this time, the system it implements will survive."

Jan 1, 1997