Availability analysis of mining machinery in Sungun copper mine

Availability, due to the complexity of modern systems, operation costs, and guaranteed functioning of the product, is considered as a challenge; it is also regardeded as one of the most characteristic aspects of quality in the 21st century. While availability in the past was a concern in sensitive and complex industries such as military, nuclear, and aerospace industries, today this issue has become a universal concern in most industries, especially the mining industry with gigantic equipment. In mathematical terms, availability includes up time and down time. These two parameters are presented in the form of two indicators of reliability and maintainability. In this study, after introducing the concept of availability, its variants, its constituent parts and the importance of availability are discussed. Finally, a mining system constituting of a WA470-3 loader, D155A bulldozer, and HD785-5 dump truck is considered from Sungun copper mine () in Iran, and analyzed for a period of 15 months. The failure data (time between failures) and repairs data (time to repair) were analysed, and the fitted best function or model as well as subsystems and subsystem availability were calculated using statistical analysis. In last step, availability importance measure concept for subsystem prioritizing in mining system configuration was used. Availability importance measure indicated that the performance of loader must be immediately improved. In addition, results showed that improving maintainability has priority over reliability.