Starter plant
Johannesburg Starter Plant
First liner habits taught before the emergency buy cycle.
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Starting out on the Highveld
A new aggregates outfit on the eastern edge of Joburg had just fired up their first jaw and cone set. The operators were running on a lean team, with an unfamiliarity around liner wear and a habit of waiting until a part failed before taking action. Early on, they had a jaw plate crack during a Friday afternoon Eskom outage, and scramble buys became the norm as liners wore thin overnight.
Plant stops for emergency liner changes were costing tonnes and morale, especially when bolts had seized or backing compound set unevenly. With no stock on hand and no habit of checking liner condition, the risk of damaging the crusher’s mainframe or toggles was high. The team needed a new routine to avoid last-minute rushes.
- Jaw and cone liners run past safe limits
- No regular liner wear checks
- Emergency orders after failures
- Risk of damaging crusher internals
Supplying the starter set and training habits
We supplied a starter kit of jaw plates, cone mantles and concaves, plus a set of liner bolts, torque charts and mixing instructions for backing compound. Our field rep met the crew on a Monday, walking them through wear profiling, safe lockout and how to check nip angle and closed side settings. We demonstrated how to use a wear gauge to check jaw thickness at the end of each shift, and how to spot signs of uneven feed or a poor crushing chamber profile.
A basic wear log was set up on a clipboard in the control room, and lifting lugs were inspected for safe changeouts. We showed the importance of cleaning bolt threads and torquing in sequence, and left laminated checklists for daily and weekly routines. The team ran their first planned changeover with our guidance, using correct backing and lifting methods.
- Starter set: jaw plates, mantles, concaves, bolts, compound
- On-site training for wear checks and safe changeouts
- Wear log and daily checklist introduced
Sustaining good habits and lessons learned
After the first campaign, the plant crew kept up with daily liner checks and logged their wear rates. They adjusted their feed distribution to avoid localised wear and started choke feeding the cone more consistently. The plant manager began pre-ordering liners based on average wear life, keeping a small stock on site and reducing panic buying.
In hindsight, we would have started with a quick training session on screen media as well, since the team later battled with loose tension and uneven apertures. For future starter plants, we plan to include basic screen checks and tensioning in our initial visit. The hands-on start helped the team avoid costly downtime and form habits that should serve them as tonnages grow.
- Regular wear checks built into the daily routine
- Stock holding based on wear logs
- Plans to reinforce screen media checks earlier
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