News » Automated bolt production
Automated bolt production
30 March 2010
MINOVA Australia's new high tech and fully automated rock bolt manufacturing plant in Sydney's Arndell Park is in its final stage of commissioning.
The Arndell Park plant is designed to produce rock bolts for the underground coal sector and uses multiple industrial robots in the manufacturing process.
Officially opened in November, it is initially targeting production of more than 2 million rock bolts a year, with the potential to increase capacity to more than 5 million rock bolts per annum.
When the final stage commissioning of the packaging robot is completed this month the automated production line will only need two people to run, producing one bolt every 10 seconds at full production, reaching 7500 per day.
The new technology will lead to cost savings, improved efficiency and superior quality control.
Minova Australia coal business manager Matthew Berry said the bolts produced from the new production line are of an excellent and consistent high quality.
As a contingency, an additional manual production line was also recently commissioned to allow output to continue through scheduled maintenance periods of the automated line, and to help meet peak demand periods.
More than 50 attendees were at the opening day including key customers, university experts, consultants and other industry representatives.
Berry said the feedback was great and several customer groups have made more personalised visits since.
He said many of the bigger customer companies undertook technical and manufacturing evaluation to ensure the product stacks up and the plant can meet demand.
"The reaction has been very positive across the board," Berry said.
Minova also picked up its first new bolt account in December, with supply to the New South Wales coal producer starting last month.
While Minova is well known as a supplier for its chemical-based products to the coal industry, the Orica subsidiary moved into Australia's rock bolt market after acquiring Sydney-based Strata Control Systems in May 2008.
Berry said he had seen competitor plants in Australia and also toured Minova plants in Europe and USA.
"Out of all the plants I have seen there is nothing even remotely close to the set-up here."
The new facility was designed with input from Minova's US bolt-producing operations.
The automated manufacturing process lends itself to quality control, providing computer data to determine strength curves and perform analysis and other testing methods.
The automated production line also removes a lot of the manual tasks associated with typical bolt manufacturing.
With the automated line, SCS steel products manufacturing manager Mark Lumley said the first person to touch the bolt would be the miner who put it into the roof.
The Arndell Park plant also undertakes research and development and tests bolts for rock conditions found underground.
Minova also plans to distribute its plate and resin products from the new facility.
