African mines are under pressure to increase their safety and efficiency standards, all the while adhering to tighter budgets owing to commodities price fluctuations, tyre and wheel service provider Kal Tire Southern Africa VP John Sims tells Mining Weekly.

“The current pressure on commodities prices and the tough conditions under which mines operate have probably refocused their need to enhance vehicle uptime, ensuring that machinery and equipment is available at all times, downtime is limited and productivity is increased.”

Sims states that many modern mines and mining houses have, subsequently, adopted aggressive tyre and wheel maintenance programmes.

Kal Tire is well prepared, he says, to absorb industry instabilities, as the company looks to prove its value to customers. As part of this endeavour, the company is developing new systems to measure the impact of cost-saving decisions and the potential effect of not implementing them.

Sims states that the company has also put much effort into the development of a forecasting model that enables it to use data from mine sites to forecast an operation’s vehicle tyre requirements, maintenance schedule and service structures.

Sims warns that wheels and tyres are pressure vessels that can be dangerous if they are not timeously and properly maintained.

He explains that many of the developments and innovations in the mining vehicle wheel and tyre service sector aim to make the servicing of components safer. Kal Tire focuses on conducting research and development (R&D) on robotics to handle the fitting and stripping of tyres. One such R&D project involves the development of a zero-gravity arm that lifts heavy-impact and torque tools, eliminating the physical strain this task would have placed on service technicians.

Although R&D is the sole mandate of the company’s headquarters, in Canada, wheel and tyre service packages are offered to mines across Africa by the global Kal Tire business, Sims adds. The company’s Southern Africa operations currently encompass mining operations in South Africa, Zambia, Tanzania, Mozambique and Botswana.

Kal Tire services South African mines from six depots located at Barberton, Lydenburg, Middelburg, Secunda and Thabazimbi, and is particularly proud to be the primary service provider for Brazilian mining company Vale’s Moatize coal mine, in Tete, Mozambique. The company has been on site at Vale for five years, with its service contract renewed earlier this year for a further three years.

The company is also contracted to service gold mines in Tanzania. This involves providing tyre management services and supplying a complete vendor-managed inventory process, says Sims. Tyre inventory is managed to ensure adequate stock at all times.

With a growing African footprint, Sims states that the company has established service centres in Tanzania, Mozambique, Zambia and Botswana. He adds that the company is also active in West Africa, where it services operations in Ghana, Mali, Burkina Faso, Senegal and Mauritania.

As a family business, Sims says Kal Tire “is in it for the long term” and that management is up to the task of securing the company’s presence in the mining vehicle tyre industry for many years to come. “The company’s aim is to earn the trust of our customers by providing them with a level of quality and value of products and services that exceed their expectations.”