Economic model for maintenance decision: a case study for mill liners

Purpose - Wear life of mill liners is an important parameter concerning maintenance decision for mill liners. Variations in process parameters such as different ore properties due to the use of multiple ore types influence the wear life of mill liners whereas random order of processing, processing time and monetary value of different ore types leads to variation in mill profitability. The purpose of the present paper is to develop an economic decision model considering the variations in process parameters and maintenance parameters for making more cost-effective maintenance decisions. Design/methodology/approach - Correlation studies, experimental results and experience of industry experts are used for wear life modeling whereas simulation is used for maximizing mill profit to develop economic decision model. The weighting approach and simulation have been considered to emphasize the contribution of parameters such as ore value and processing time of a specific ore type to a final result. Findings - A model for estimating lifetime of mill liners has been developed based on ore properties. The lifetime model is combined with a replacement interval model to determine the optimum replacement interval for the mill liners which considers process parameters of multiple ore types. The finding of the combined model results leads to a significant improvement in mill profit. The proposed combined model also shows that an optimum maintenance policy can not only reduce the downtime costs, but also affect the process performance, which leads to significant improvement in the savings of the ore dressing mill. Practical implications - The proposed economic decision model is practically feasible and can be implemented within the ore dressing mill industries. Using the model, the cost-effective maintenance decision can increase the profit of the organization significantly. Originality/value - The novelty is that the new combined model is applicable and useful in replacement decision making for grinding mill liners, in complex environment, e.g. processing multiple ore types, different monetary value of the ore type and random order of ore processing.