Title: How do operators and environment conditions influence the productivity of a large mining excavator?

Authors: S.P. Bettens; P.M. Siegrist; P.R. McAree

Addresses: School of Mechanical and Mining Engineering, The University of Queensland St. Lucia, QLD 4072, Australia ' School of Mechanical and Mining Engineering, The University of Queensland St. Lucia, QLD 4072, Australia ' School of Mechanical and Mining Engineering, The University of Queensland St. Lucia, QLD 4072, Australia

Abstract: This paper considers the sources of variation in the operation of hydraulic mining excavators to shed light on the benefit of tighter control of the excavation process. An observational study is conducted, collecting operational data from a Liebherr R996 mining shovel for a number of equipment operators and environments. The methodology assesses the significance of the operator, material diggability, and bench height on variation in productivity. The paper finds that these three factors are important, with operator variation identified as the dominant factor. There is evidence that skilled operators may marginalise the influence of variation in environment conditions on productivity. The paper's contribution is the quantification of the influence of bench height, digging conditions and the operator on productivity. The significance is that the findings give clarity to the prospective benefit that the automation of excavators would achieve.

Keywords: mining excavators; hydraulic shovels; mining shovels; productivity study; production rate; operators; human factors; bench height; diggability; excavation environment conditions; sources of variation; automation; precision mining.

DOI: 10.1504/IJMME.2022.124143

International Journal of Mining and Mineral Engineering, 2022 Vol.13 No.1, pp.18 - 36

Received: 23 Aug 2021
Accepted: 31 Jan 2022
Published online: 14 Jul 2022 *

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