The Importance Of Quality Control
Picture the scene. You’re a mine site mechanic and a house-sized mining truck has broken down in the field. You’re unable to get the vehicle back to a repair facility, so you have to fix it where it is. Fortunately, your many years of experience enable you to diagnose the problem. You need to take out an exhaust component that has failed and replace it with a new unit. You and your colleagues labour for hours in choking clouds of dust to prepare for the swap.
Every hour of downtime is costing your employers thousands of dollars in lost revenue, so you work as quickly as you can on the mobile asset you’re trying to return to the rotation. The part you need has been shuttled out to you, and you’re finally ready to install the brand-new exhaust component that your purchasing department ordered months ago for a situation just such as this. But the part – it turns out – doesn’t fit. The angle is wrong on one of the legs and, no matter what you try, you cannot shoehorn that unit into place. Imagine your frustration! This is the type of nightmare scenario that quality control procedures are meant to prevent.
Of course, a comprehensive quality control program has more than a single benefit. Quality control processes, in other words, don’t just eliminate inconveniences. They also save lives by ensuring that safety measures are functioning as they should, and boost profitability as well by enhancing efficiency. In today’s blog post, we’ll talk about quality control and do so with a particular focus on heavy mining equipment.
Heavy Mining Equipment Safety Considerations
When it comes to heavy duty mining equipment, seemingly minor mistakes can be deadly. This is particularly true with mining equipment exhaust systems, where temperatures spike to dangerous levels during operation. At DBA Silencing, we encase our exhaust components in composite shells that dramatically reduce the risk of truck fires. {If you’re interested in our revolutionary shell technology, you may wish to check out our blog post entitled “DBA & Mining Haul Truck Safety“.}
Other exhaust component manufacturers utilize thermal blankets, and they can be effective also. But it’s not difficult to imagine a situation where insufficient quality control mechanisms allow an undersized thermal blanket to ship. An undersized thermal blanket could leave a gap in coverage, a gap that could allow oil from a ruptured line to contact the superheated surface of an exhaust pipe and kick off a catastrophic blaze.
At DBA, we take safety extremely seriously. And that’s why we have rigorous quality control processes in place. Highly-credentialed engineers spend years designing parts that can withstand the stresses to which they’re subjected and function for long periods without putting in jeopardy the individuals who helm heavy mining equipment. We see it as our job to produce components that meet the exacting standards that these mining company engineers have specified.
DBA parts are hand-crafted by expert welders and, once a unit has been assembled, it’s meticulously inspected by trained members of the DBA team who ensure that all the component’s dimensions are within the allowable tolerances. In some cases, these tolerances are only a few millimetres. It is for this reason that we also have people in the DBA shipping department who perform a final check prior to crates leaving our facility.
As you might anticipate, our shipping department is also responsible for a number of other activities related to quality control. Paint is a good example. The folks in our painting department are careful to utilize appropriate amounts of primer and topcoat when applying industrial coatings. Our customers expect that we will meet their minimum paint thickness thresholds, and we have multi-step programs in place to guarantee that this is the case.
It’s also important, when we’re producing OEM parts for brand-new mining equipment, that the coating isn’t scuffed or scratched during transit. That’s why these parts are often swaddled in bubble wrap and cardboard, so they won’t be marred en route. Of course, these sorts of safeguards aren’t just meant to minimize cosmetic blemishes. They’re also designed to eliminate damage that occurs during shipping; a damaged part can feature the same sorts of safety risks as a defective one.
Heavy Mining Equipment Financial Factors
Heavy mining equipment can generate enormous revenues, but it’s also extremely expensive. In some cases, the engine of a mining truck will cost more than a million dollars all on its own. Imagine how upset you’d be if an engine this pricey was compromised by a handful of grit that found its way into your truck through a faulty air intake system.
At DBA Silencing, we do manufacture air intake systems. {We also manufacture coolant systems, and we specialize in exhaust kits.} As you’d expect, our air intake components undergo pressure tests prior to leaving our welding shop. This is an example of a quality control check that helps our customers remain profitable. {You can learn more about our air intake units by perusing our recent article entitled “Diesel Air Intake Systems In Mining Trucks“.}
Conclusion
Quality control is important in all industries but it’s downright critical when we’re talking about mining equipment, especially heavy mining equipment. At DBA Silencing, we do everything in our power to ensure that our parts are made precisely to print using only high-quality materials. This keeps our customers happy, because it helps with not only safety and reliability, but also efficiency and profitability.
If you have questions about our quality control standards, feel free to call our office at 1-800-661-5886. You can also email us at info@dbasilencing.ca or contact us through our website: dbasilencing.ca. A final note: this piece has been proofread three times. Because we apply to our blog posts the same quality control standards we apply to our heavy duty mining equipment components.