Condition monitoring company WearCheck will showcase its mining-related products and services at this year’s Investing in African Mining Indaba – to be held at the Cape Town International Convention Centre from February 6 to 9 – to participants in the broader African mining industry.

“We always enjoy greeting familiar faces and connecting with clients. We also love the challenge of selling our unique condition-monitoring services to a new audience, and this exhibition presents us with the opportunity to grow our customer base and provide existing clients with new services,” says WearCheck MD Neil Robinson.

WearCheck recently introduced its water testing service in early 2022, which will also be showcased at the Mining Indaba.

Water analysis involves laboratory technicians selecting the relevant tests for the water sample, depending on customer requirements, which can include drinking-water purity, assessing the safety of borehole water for agricultural use or checking the contamination levels of wastewater.

Technicians identify the issues of the water and advise customers on the possible consequences of using or discarding such water.

Water analysis is conducted using various accredited techniques such as photometric, electrometric, colorimetric, gravimetric, ICP-OES, ICP MS and enzyme substrates.

Robinson says these techniques obtain the best possible results in chemical and microbial analyses of effluent or wastewater, drinking water, processed water, surface water and groundwater.

WearCheck will exhibit at stand D16 at this year’s Indaba, with WearCheck water laboratories GM Thelma Horsfield acting as a representative at the stand.

Conditiion Monitoring

Without prior knowledge of impending failure, components in a mining operation may cease functioning without warning, causing disruptions to the operation, with some disruptions occurring over protracted periods, owing to a potential lack of necessary spares.

Hence, condition monitoring can detect a potential problem before it happens.

Robinson cites examples of the company’s non-destructive testing (NDT) team detecting a problem with a winder’s brake spring nest tension bolt, or a WearCheck diagnostician detecting when the bearings on an engine are about to fail.

Further, WearCheck’s “all-under-one-roof” solutions hub makes condition monitoring more convenient for mining operations.

The hub enables mining companies to conduct an oil analysis, whereby WearCheck can provide any additional condition-monitoring services.

It also enables WearCheck to conduct other fluid analyses, such as for oil and grease, and provides asset reliability care, advanced field services, NDT, water analysis, transformer oil analysis and lubricant-enabled reliability services.

“There is no need for a mining operation to go anywhere other than to WearCheck for all condition-monitoring requirements,” enthuses Robinson.

He adds that clients who have received the greatest return on investment on condition monitoring are those with well-trained staff who understand the benefits of the programme and can correctly collect the required samples or supply the correct readings and information where necessary.

Hence, WearCheck offers a comprehensive set of oil analysis and condition-monitoring training courses for its clients. The courses are designed for maintenance practitioners operating at various levels in an organisation.

WearCheck has been an accredited training partner for condition monitoring training provider Mobius Institute since 2015.

Mobius courses include precision shaft alignment, precision balancing, vibration analysis CAT I to CAT IV, asset reliability practitioner, lean maintenance planning, operator asset care and transformer oil analysis.

The company operates a network of 14 laboratories in 14 countries, including South Africa, Dubai and India.

While the company provides condition- monitoring services for the transport, power generation, aviation, agriculture, maritime and manufacturing sectors, the mining industry is the sector in which a large majority of its customers operate.

“In the next five to ten years, we plan to open another four laboratories in new locations in Africa, and potentially a few more in India. We generally situate our laboratories in Africa in and around the mining hotspots on the continent to help bring world-class condition-monitoring services to mines,” concludes Robinson.