MASPRO re-engineers aged or ill-performing components to as-new or better condition, delivering longer equipment life for its mining customers.
The Australian mining industry is known for offering some especially harsh working conditions – and sometime equipment struggles to cope.
That means local engineering and servicing, ensuring parts and attachments are manufactured and maintained with Australian conditions in mind, can be critical to the success of a mining operation.
That’s where MASPRO comes to the fore. MASPRO, which specialises in solutions “that surpass industry standards”, re-engineers aged or ill-performing original equipment manufacturer (OEM) parts to as-new or better condition, designing, engineering and manufacturing new components in a matter of weeks. This enables operators to keep their machinery on the park for longer and with more confidence.
MASPRO head of engineering Tony Waterman told Australian Mining company’s approach starts with understanding a customer’s needs.
“MASPRO’s sales team gets the needs of the customer – what they wish for and expect – and then the rest of the company works together to make that happen,” Waterman said.
“The engineering department can design anything, but that doesn’t mean it can be made. So we have to work really closely together to make sure that what we make meets or exceeds the client’s expectations and is done in a way that is repeatable.”
MASPRO can complete one-off projects but the company specialises in batch solutions that are applicable to a wide range of equipment or are synonymous to a particular product.
Such is the case with MASPRO’s Bolting Series 2.0, a range of engineered parts for Sandvik’s widely used SB60 booms.
The Bolting Series 2.0 includes a bolting cradle assembly, inner zoom, cylinder and downhole power unit (DPU), with MASPRO working on an outer zoom to add to the collection.
What started with the DPU has now expanded into a range of critical parts that are enabling operators to achieve better performance and get more hours out of their bolting rigs.
“Customers were experiencing failures with their DPUs, from excessive pin-wear and cracked castings happening really early,” Waterman said.
“You could expect to have a casting last several years, but in some instances fatigue cracks were occurring in eight months.
“So we redesigned the casting components with our proprietary steel, changed the design to be fatigue-resistant and improved the interactive surfaces. This improved the DPU’s tensile and yield strength, and its fatigue performance to enable it to last longer.
“From that, we developed the cradle, bolting cylinder, inner zoom and the zoom cylinder, and now we’re developing the outer zoom.”
The Bolting Series 2.0 has been well received across the Australian mining market, with strong testimonials for all parts.
“We’re seeing a significant increase in life,” Waterman said. “We had one DPU, for instance, that despite being more two years old still looked in as-new condition with little wear to the castings.
“We haven’t had any issues with the cradle. We’re currently running cradle trials with some clients to see how it performs when regimentally documented on a month-to-month basis.
“As for the inner zoom, there’s been no failures and no surprises – it just works.”
Waterman said the Bolting Series 2.0 is unique to the market, with few other designed, engineered and manufactured bolting offerings available for the Australian mining sector.
MASPRO’s commitment to specialist bolting products is allowing customers to achieve greater flexibility with their operation. This includes being able to bolt with a jumbo drill rig.
“We’re focusing on bolting because we know some customers would, in certain operations, prefer to bolt with a jumbo rather than a cable bolter. So we’re trying to meet that need in a safer way for our customers,” Waterman said.
“The focus is always on increasing the life of the product for the customer, so they can either increase their service life or know they’re going to reliably meet their scheduled service life.
“If it’s a 12-month service interval, it’s going to be a 12-month interval, not six, seven or eight months. It’s about reliability and performance and enabling customers to have continuity and trust in their operations.”
As MASPRO services the unique and precise needs of its mining customers, the company is faced with new challenges every day.
Waterman acknowledged that MASPRO is “often going back to the drawing board”, but this only fuels the company’s ingenuity and brings rise to its most inspired innovations.
For MASPRO, no conundrum cannot be solved, which means miners are always in safe hands.
This feature appeared in the May 2024 issue of Australian Mining.
