Mining and underground drilling companies all over the world are constantly looking for ways to improve their productivity. With already advanced technology available for underground drilling, availability of advanced drill rigs and roof bolters, only a few changes in your working procedure can help you increase your productivity.
Today we will be giving you 7
actionable tips to increase your productivity. We will also be sharing some bad
drilling habits that you must avoid. So let us look at them one by one:
Tip
No.1 Choose the right Underground rigs and bolters
The terrain that you are working on
will determine what kind of drilling technology you will be using i.e. Diamond
Drilling Rotary Drilling etc. Now choosing the correct underground rigs & bolters will be determined by the Safety of
the equipment, Reliability of the equipment and the ease of use. Yes, cost is
another factor, but having low cost can never assure you great ease or quality.
Choosing the right core bit also plays a very important role.
Tip
No.2 Drilling Parameters
Drilling parameters are meant to
help you achieve longer drill life, better rate of penetration and longer drill
life. They are recommended according to the hardness of the rock and terrain
conditions. These are important parameters that you must keep in mind while
drilling optimization.
1) Weight on bit: The pressure or the
weight on the bit should be as low as possible while maintaining a good rate of
penetration. An increase in weight can damage the drill.
2) Rotation Speed (RPM): Depending upon
the rock we might need to increase or decrease the rotation speed as for. We
also adjacently look at the weight on the bit while maintaining the rotation
speed.
3) Water Flow rate: A good water flow
rate can increase the life of the drill as the heat produced while drilling can
cause wear and tear to the drills material.
4)
Drill Diameter: Choosing a drill
diameter also goes hand in hand with the RPM and the type of rock chosen.
Tip
no. 3 Performing Regular Maintenance
Once you are underground any problem
in the system cannot be fixed as easily as it can be otherwise. Before you
start your drilling operation make sure you have ensured that the Roof Bolters
and Drill Rigs, Drill bits, any pneumatic equipment are checked duly and only
then sent underground. The best solution to this is scheduling regular
maintenance and keeping track of all past maintenance issues.
Tip
no. 4 Correct Lubricants
You will need lubrication at two
places. First is while drilling the rock. As the temperature increases
continuously with drilling regular cooling and lubricating the rock underground
becomes mandatory. And the second instance is for the drill itself, in order to
increase drill life. Having lubricant with zinc proves to be the best for any
diamond drill.
Tip
no. 5 Maintain Logs and Records
One of the most important factors
when it comes to increasing productivity is timing. How much time does a task
take! Measuring the time based on past references maintaining log books for
check-in, check-out, task completion, present absent manual labour, machine
maintenance, all billing details can help you increase not only the
productivity of the job, but will also help you cut costs. Make standard log
books, record books, assign people to create reports and calendars, maintaining
documents and records. Being clear and being extremely organized about the
documentation can help you increase drilling productivity.
Tip
no. 6 Be Present
The people who know the drills will
know how a drill tells you about the conditions. A drill when it goes inside
the hole can tell you a lot through vibration, certain sounds, reverberation.
It can tell you about rock hardness, water present, minerals, density and so
many things. But you must be a 100% present when you are carrying out the job.
Not only will it tell you about the conditions there it might even warn you
about safety measures, any emergencies or any problems. Also being aware of
these things before hand during the training can help recover a lot of task
which brings us to the last point i.e. Training
Tip
no. 7 Using Drilling Simulator
Using simulator based training can
help increase underground productivity. There are situations that cannot be
trained in real life as they can prove to be risky. Not only can they increase
productivity they can also train employees for various safety scenarios by
replicating them. The employees can be trained to use underground rigs and
bolters as well. And as they are done on software the costs automatically are
reduced as compared to what would have been incurred for real training. And
also the cost of repairing the damages after any emergency situation can be
dramatically reduced using this simulator technique.
In drilling good safety measures are
paramount and can help you increase productivity while also cutting costs.
These tips are based completely keeping in mind the safety as well.
So let us know if you found any of
the tips useful. Which of the tips are you going to use. Let us know in the
comments below.