Improving Belt Hygiene across 81 conveyors
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A major iron ore port facility was facing severe downtime and belt mistracking issues caused primarily by carryback and belt hygiene issues. Our team were called in to conduct their largest belt upgrade project to date.
The Challenge
This major iron ore port in West Australia relies upon a truly massive number of conveyor systems, with the highest number of wash boxes of any site in the world, making belt operability and reliability a critical consideraiton in port operations.
After an audit of performance across FY25, it was found that just in the top 62 conveyors with the largest impact, 985 hours of downtime had been caused by belt damage, and 781 hours were caused by tracking impact.
It was determined that the principal cause of these issues was carryback and faltering belt hygiene. To amend these issues, our team were called in, alongside Flexco, to begin a mass remediation project that would aid the site in their goal to become the most efficient mining port worldwide.
Though many steps remain to be enacted, the first step in our plan was to improve belt hygiene and carryback.
The Solution
It was decided that the first step of the sitewide upgrade would be a complete overhaul of the belt wash sites for every single conveyor on the site.
In collaboration with Flexco, Fenner Conveyors’ team redesigned and upgraded all belt wash systems.
In addition, Fenner Conveyors’ team conducted a number of other audits and inspections, finding that:
- A ship-loading conveyor’s downtime and runoff issues were caused by mistracking. Realignment was performed on this conveyor.
- Guide rollers on a critical conveyor were not to specification and had not been installed at a unform height. A full reset was performed on these guide rollers.
The Results
Across the site, belt hygiene has been significantly improved, with reduced carryback on belting, rollers and dirty side pulleys, preventing belt failure and premature roller and pulley wear.
This work has helped to protect critical conveyor components by significantly reducing spillage, supporting system longevity and reducing tracking issue and conveyor downtime.
In addition, in the six-weeks post realignment, the ship-loading conveyor has ceased appearing on downtime reports.
The critical conveyor suffering from issues with its guide rollers has reported 25-30% reduced downtime since the guide roller reset.
