If possible to solve the issue in the first attempt you should:

require that a mechanic, sparky-electrician and one of your welders must go visit one of the desired machines to examine one unit prior to placing an order or deposit and

LISTEN TO THEM!! If they would not buy it, I would not waste my time or lose my job over it, as they will be able to help you at first inspection. Saving money is fine but you do

that by purchasing high quality machinery from a reputable manufacturer.

The dead giveaway/red flag is/was the price as it was not even competitive.

Personally I have had many aquaintences complain of their sales tactics/lower prices and lower quality materials with belt conveyors.



If you want a "stacker only" for an uncovered stock pile you would

be money ahead buying a high speed material slinger from

Redler or metso and mount it on the end of a radial rubber tire wheeled stacker or a

stationary tower fed by a conveyor which will be used to deliver the coal to the end point where

it would be used to throw it a huge distance.

There are quite a few stacker conveyors that are connected

elephant walk style to move bulk material with few issues

other than moving them.

The Canadian Rock Salt Mine in Pugwash, Nova Scotia, Canada

uses a series of stacking conveyors to feed its very large ship loading stock pile at its harbor entrance



loading berth at Pugwash.

take some time to visit a model machine with these employees and then you will know;

ask for a verifiable metallurgy report on the steel used for the machine, ask for infrmation on any hardox steel used if any, samples of welding rod or welding wire

ISO standards are fine but a private metallurgy report, chipping hammer and magnet will tell you an awful lot about your prospective

purchase.

The use of quality components is fine but implementation and strength and quality of the materials are the issue.

its simpler to visirt with a several employees who work on these machines and then no mistakes will occur as your employees will know as

they are the ones who are the ones repairing machinery.

the key things are the quality of the welds, welding rod or wire, thickness of the steel plating, quality of the wiring job, types of bolts used-

use of fine threaded bolts and and nylock nuts and socket head cap screw washers(allen bolt washers)-

Socket head cap screws are best in my opinion-fewer tools needed, fewer tools to lose or misplace or carry to a repair, no worn bolt heads from slippage of spanners.

also if the machines interior or exterior electrical cabinets have more than 50 thousandths gap in the access panels its not explosion proof PERIOD.

The electric motors and splices as well as the splice boxes will also be a direct indicator-if the entrance wire is not protected by NEC tubing and compression glands on the wire runs

that is a no no.

The trailing cable is another issue, where if it is 4160 volts you want to see the mane of the manufacturer, a thick rubber carcass on the cable, three hot leads labeled 1, 2, 3, one hot continuity

cable with a yellow colored jacket and two green colored ground wires. The trailing cable should be hard wired-preferably or if male and female plugs are used it should be of known

manufacture and if you separate the plugs there should be no jumper wires!!!

My opinion ■

Lately Chineese Cos. have taken lot of orders from India also.In the beginning the things were very good but the Honeymoon period was very short.Please note that in China there are very few good suppliers and most of the companies acting as a traders/commission agents.Just to keep their shop running they even play with the quality of equipment.

Regards, Anil Seth

www.libranengineering.com

Material Handling Consultant(Port Sector) for--

Halcrow,Royal Haskoning,Aecom/Mounsel,TM Logitics(A TATA CO.),Drewry,KPMG,GAMMON ect. ■

I can tell you from personal experience that the larger players (3-4) have a reputation of supplying very good equipment and functional engineering of their systems.

They still on a learning curve for complex systems. Koch had many pipe conveyors before they commissioned the 8 km Peru tunnel pipe. China commissioned a 7.7 km pipe just a few months after the Koch Peru with equal success. The same also has some debatable pipe conveyor installations that did not perform very well.

Some of the large European conveyor suppliers are specing idlers from China, where the USA Q/A program demonstrates good performance with roll balance and rolling friction.

Many users of conveyor belt use reputable Chinese belt suppliers with very good success where again the better technology and Q/A are USA, Japanese, or European controlled.

Structures are also in demand due to very competitive pricing. Buyers need to impose welding inspectors and obtain welding certificates to qualify the fabricator.

We provide all the steel and other stress analysis details, according to ASD or other steel design controls, to accept the design. ■

I think the Chinese have good copycat products that CNC and WELD to the levels we expect. I all depends on the QA tools that control the quality.

If you wish to Poo-Poo then by all means I look forward to competing against you.

Many of the leading suppliers have found that they can afford to teach and regulate, under contract, the quality outcome.

My comment is to inform those that wish to know the trends in our industry. The big six firms (S, K, T, M, ...) that compete and fabricate in China and around the globe know who and how to achieve these controls.

If you do not impose the necessary controls, then ta-ta.

Do not talk through your hat. If you don't know, then don't tell.

I would like to purchase from USA or Europe, however, you cannot compete with half price. Thus, if you wish to compete, the devil is in the details of how to achieve the expectation with a modest sum that affords the necessary controls. ■

Hello to everyone.

Does anyone know if companies like Takraf, FLS, Thyssen… have suppliers in China for the bucket wheel reclaimers? I presume many of them have the branch offices or some sort of local partnership for this and similar machinery.

Has anyone worked with such companies which probably meet higher standards due to fact they have been chosen to work with brand names of the industry? Any recommendations?

Kind regards,

Ivan. ■

Nalwaya, I was presented with an NHI design for a stacker where the boom tension was provided by a GTU. Presumably this was a well meant design to reduce the counterweight. Of course the contribution might have been very slightly useful. Trouble was that the GTU weight was suspended over the roadway below throughout its intended life. Short belts on booms do not last long and without diligent maintenance the belt could have snapped and allowed the weight to fall on the passage below. I rejected the design out of hand. Sometimes you can spot a faulty design even before you have completely unfolded the drawing. It makes life easier. It certainly did here.

In a later meeting NHI also proposed to build bunkers to store laterite ore to the mills. Reminders that placing laterite ore in bins was akin to brickmaking without the kiln fell on deaf ears.

You couldn't sell me one of their nails!

Oriole666, You already sport the mark of the devil so why presume that the standards are any higher because of associations with people who know what they are doing. Specifications and QA/QC procedures rule the roost and that is all there is to it. So you need Western QA/QC staff who can speak Chinese and get work permits and then you will have fewer troubles. ■

I believe there to be a great deal of global experience with purchase of machines from particularly China, but also India and other lower cost suppliers for use in other countries.

Most main stream Western suppliers have long standing relationships with Asian manufacturers and usually offer cheaper manufacture than for example in Canada or Australia etc. for the same machine. I have noticed that Eastern Europe is often a secondary option for lower cost, Poland in particular.

There are also several well known Chinese and Indian manufacturers that you can go to directly. I have no input with respect to the less well known and smaller organisations.

My experience says that you can get as good a machine from any of these suppliers as you can from any western supplier.

You can also get something that is entirely different. I am sure many can tell you their stories. I have some. Getting good electrical and control gear is an issue, particularly as many countries require absoolute compliance with their own codes. Steel quality, and welding is another area to watch.

The quality depends on the agreement with the supplier and managing the agreement to ensure that you get what you want. This management can be expensive. I recommend full time QA on all sites or as close to this as you can get. The issue is not the inate ability to build a good piece of equipment, which clearly exists, but a different cultural approach to the understanding of what this means, and contract definition and implementation.

Then you have to ship it to your lcation, an additional cost.

My worst issue with dealing direct with the lower cost manufacturers is that they don't seem to have any after market support, so you are more or less on your own when the machine arrives on a ship in pieces.

Western suppliers offer the same support for low cost machines as they would for the others - after all the design and bid are the same and they mostly have offices and people in the main centres around the world. Also western suppliers give an all in design/supply/build/commission package which I always recommend. Who knows best about how to build their own machines?

A very senior person on large project teams once worked out over several projects that the total saving, with QA and all for supply and erection of the 50% sale price machine was about 10-15% after it was all worked out. Not bad if you can get it on a $20million machine!

As with everything, you should do the research, make a choice and work with the consequences. The doom sayers are those who didn't, or as I've noticed a few times, knew they should but didn't pay the extra to get what they wanted.

I will continue to look at lower cost suppliers, for preference the mainstream western machine suppliers with full support. I have just been involved in the purchase of a stacker reclaimer which will be made in China on this basis and a rail car dumper that is part supplied out of China. In both cases the electrical components will be sourced from Canada/USA for use in Canada.

Good luck ■