Surface mining equipment attachment solutions developed by manufacturer Machinery Contractors are aimed at reducing worker exposure to hazardous areas while improving operational efficiency, says Machinery Contractors head of sales and marketing Wayne Lester.

The company focuses on specialised machinery attachments – such as tyre handlers, cable reelers, truck rollers and pin extractors – to support safer maintenance processes at equipment-intensive operations, such as earthmoving sites and surface mines, particularly during maintenance activities involving big and heavy components.

In the development of products, the company focuses on operational challenges identified by customers.

“We listen to the pain points and unravel the core problem. By understanding the actual problem, we transform engineering challenges into opportunities, and come up with solutions to counteract those challenges and eliminate risk zones”, he explains, adding that this approach is central to Machinery Contractors’ mission.

Machinery Contractors’ attachments are also designed to lower the manual handling risks involved in servicing heavy mining equipment. Lester notes that tasks such as changing mining wheels are far more complex than ordinary roadside tyre changes, as some wheels can weigh as much as 13 t, making manual handling impossible.

Local Demand

While Machinery Contractors competes with international suppliers, he says the company sets itself apart through strong local support and quicker response times. As an original-equipment manufacturer, the company can deliver immediate assistance, significantly reducing equipment downtime at mining operations.

Global pressures, such as rising diesel costs and delays in sourcing parts, are also increasing equipment lead times, with critical components often having to be transported by air or sea freight, which is expensive. Machinery Contractors can eliminate this waiting time through its local manufacturing footprint, says Lester.

He says reducing downtime remains one of the company’s key priorities, with products such as its Brachio Claw pin extractor (a hydraulically operated attachment that mounts onto a wheel loader) serving to reduce shutdown downtime by 57%. Instead of spending an entire shift manually hammering or cutting out stubborn pins, the Brachio Claw safely grips, extracts and inserts large pins in a fraction of the time. This allows maintenance teams to stay out of high-risk zones and focus on the actual repair work “rather than fighting with pins all day”.

Meanwhile, the company has adapted its product development strategy over the past 31 years, as mining operations have become more mechanised and increasingly focused on safety in the surface mining industry.

“We used to build only buckets, but we diversified into different products. Our customers gave us the opportunities to do that by partnering with us to develop purpose-built solutions,” says Lester, adding that as a result, the company now manufactures 1 051 different products.

He expects AI and data-driven processes to influence the future development of specialised mining attachments, as AI has become a major discussion point regarding how Machinery Contractors implements data-driven processes into new-product development.

An example of this continual updating of equipment designs is evidenced in the company's marketing of the twenty-sixth iteration of its MC 4400 Tyre Handler.

“Every year, we relook at our products and try to see how we can improve them,” he concludes.