ISSUE 76 — Friday 18th December 2015

“Well that’s the last of em!” Joel “Bear” Einam summed this project up perfectly.

“All Champion Compressors are changed out with the last one completed this week (PTA 6). Great effort by all. Some of you may have rekindled memories of cracked filter bowls or showers (Lee Crick?) with the departure of the Champion Compressors….. A Great Project to be a part of with a Great Team”

This project began in late November of 2014 with an initial plan to replace 7 compressors before Christmas grew to a project to remove all Champions from our fleet and upgrade to an Atlas GA45.

This was a vitally important project for LMO; the champions were at times unreliable in air delivery and quite often led to tapping losses due to the operation-al capability of the champion compressor.

In total 18 compressors have been replaced across the fleet comprising 17 champions and 1 Atlas GA55 (unplanned and unexpected!)

With expert planning, initially from Mick Jackson and then by Peter Petryk (when he finally returned from leave), technical expertise provided by Daniel King, Shayne Humphreys, Andrew Pilarski (dumped and run) and finally Trevor Beverley, we were set in mo-tion.

With the replacement strategy developed in-house by the PTA team, the team set about the replacement of the compressors. From the initial compressor which took 4 days and some “extra hours” to complete, the team had that down to just over 2 days for removal, installation, and commissioning before handing back, (it was only 3 cables, a hose and a couple of bolts right guys?).

Congratulations and a big thank you to everyone involved, including Bill Frith from Atlas

Copco and John Manning from Veolia Fabrication.

This project has been completed to plan and within budget as well as delivering

Project/Engineering $ Savings

Fast Fit installation process

New Compressor Reliability and Serviceability

Predictable Stable Equipment

The team is now asking “What’s next on the list to make these PTA’s bulletproof?”

Champion Effort!

The team, above and below a GA45+ Atlas Compressor

Paste + Bake + Rodding = Idea Generation Workshop!

On Friday 4th December, some members from all areas across the Carbon De-partment met for a 2 hour workshop. This included one operator and one maintainer from each crew in each area across Paste, Bake and Rodding as well as some of our support staff. They all came together to work on the cur-rent list of value added initiatives and to brainstorm some more ideas.

Value added ideas are about reducing wastes and developing more cost effi-cient ways by possibly having some modifications completed to existing equip-ment, or buying new equipment. Examples this year included the purchase of the road sweeper and a packing coke truck. A total of 50 extra ideas have been generated, which is great, well done everyone involved.

The next steps are to evaluate the list of ideas and get them started. The oper-ators and maintainers will share the ideas with other teams to encourage more brainstorming. Minimising waste and identi-fying opportunities have kicked off well moving forward.

Great Blue Bus Mindset!

Facilitating Creativity Amongst us!

$10k Banked—Billet Saw Cables CPO Billet Saw uses ultrasonic technology to detect cracks in every billet cut. One of

the cables connecting the ultrasonic probe to the unit had failed and required re-

placement. A second cable was in poor condition. We had no spares and replace-

ments from the supplier were quoted at $6,600 with a 12 week delivery period.

Scott Bubb from Casthouse Maintenance believed a much less costly solution was

available and on the same day purchased sufficient materials and tools, locally to

make up replacements (including 4

spares) for a total of $156. The Ultra-

sonic unit was up and running the

same day!

Quick and decisive action by Scott

meant a total cost saving of $9834

and a 3 month reduced delivery

time—Great outcome, outstanding

effort Scott!

At the Height of Compliance! There has been some fantastic effort and work happening recently

with the height compliance of the packing coke across all Bake Ovens.

We have beaten target achieving 95% compliance. The good height of

the packing coke on top stops air getting in and burning the coke. The

outcomes are already visible in the gas consumption and packing coke

consumption.

Further to that,

the top of the fur-

nace is safer with

less chance of

slip/trip hazards

and a reduction in

the top oven temperature thanks to the extra insulation layer of coke.

Awesome feedback from the crews about how we can best manage that

task, well done! There has also been some great feedback from our con-

tractors about our good housekeeping in the Bake Ovens.

VDC1 UPS (Uninterruptable Power Supply) Safety Improvement

Cast Products Maintenance Electrical Team have resolved a long standing safety concern when replacing batteries for the VDC1 UPS.

Originally, the heavy batteries were on sliding shelves located in a metal locker. The weight of 3 batteries on each shelf was excessive and a substantial effort was required to pull the shelf out to access the batteries. Some of these shelves were also at height creating a greater risk.

The solution was to replace the locker and batteries with a much simpler system using an open steel rack with batteries placed individually. The original batteries were at end of life and needed replacing, so upgrading the sys-tem at this time required very little additional cost.

All the work was done by the CPM Electrical Team with additional muscle from Production when it came to moving the batteries. GREAT INITIATIVE!

A Better Battery

BEFORE.. AFTER..