Life Cycle Services enables Anand Group to maximize production with increased profitability

Excessive shutdowns caused by “tough to break” -rock

Anand Group entered the mining and crushing business in Bihar, India, after the government policies made it possible in 2016. Ever since this decision was made, the management’s vision has been to provide the best products to the industry using the best equipment available. This was the beginning of Ramiya Construction and Metso’s relationship.

The rock in the quarry allocated to them was hard to handle and was well beyond the expected crushability and abrasiveness. Since the quarry was allotted after the bidding process – and for a limited time – more and more crushing/production was the key to achieving economies of scale. The right equipment with high availability and backed up with consistent production was the only alternative to making this business viable for the company.

“Shutdowns every third day were making it difficult for us to increase the volume, which was our prime goal. At 6,000 tons, or every third day, we had to change the whole liner – and that required a shutdown,” explains Manish Anand, Managing Director, Anand Group of Companies.

“The crushability of the rock in the Kosma quarry is very low (18%) and the abrasiveness (1980 g/t) is very high. Therefore, the wear parts have a very short lifetime; the stone is very hard and falls in the ‘tough-to-break’ category,” says Ravi Rajan Sinha, DGM, Services in Metso India.

Increasing the volume of their production

To handle this challenging situation, Metso’s service team was introduced to the customer once the Metso Life Cycle Services agreement was given the go-ahead. The team immediately jumped in and created a new process to handle the situation. The existing two-stage plant with a NW106™ Rapid portable jaw crusher and NW220GPD™ Rapid portable cone crusher was now converted to an LCS site with advanced automation.

The prime objective of the LCS contract was consistent production, spare and wear parts availability, and preventive maintenance.

“Metso provided the LCS solution to help us increase the volume. For me, volume would be the lifesaver; if we could increase the volume, then the other things would be taken care of,” explains Manish Anand.

He adds, “Now that the site is under LCS, the company processes 60,000 metric tons of rock per month on average.”

Optimizing the plant’s availability with Metso Metrics

Automation systems were utilized in handling the monitoring of the plant by the Metso Service team:

“Metso Metrics was implemented so that we could monitor the plant from a remote location,” explains Ravi Rajan Sinha.

He notes, “A standby system of all the critical components was created so that the loss of production due to breakdown could be minimized and parts could be replaced expeditiously. All wear parts were stocked on site to further reduce the time it takes to replace them. By doing this, plant availability was optimized, and consistent production was achieved.”

“After starting with LCS, we saw great improvements in productivity, even better than what Metso had projected,” Manish Anand says.

The customer saw other benefits as well. He adds, “The production helped us to offset the government’s levy costs of the quarry, which were approximately EUR 2 (Rs. 150) per tonne; after that, it was saving me some money.”

“Ramiya Construction is a very fast-growing company, especially in the last few years, and Metso has been by their side in this growth,” notes Ravi Rajan Sinha.

“Whenever we had faced any problems, Metso has always come up with a solution; that’s the greatest USP you have. Every year we’ve been adding to our plants; all the repeat orders have been given to Metso. I don’t even think about any other plant,” shares Manish Anand on its long-term association with Metso.