ShovelMetrics has made a number of installations and upgrades at mining sites worldwide, capping off what has been a successful winter season for the company.

A South African platinum mine is upgrading their existing ShovelMetrics™ systems to include fragmentation analysis. At this particular mine, we previously installed ShovelMetrics™ missing tooth detection systems on seven Terex RH340 hydraulic shovels and one TZ WK55 excavator.

Over the next few months each of these shovels will be outfitted with in-bucket fragmentation analysis capabilities. These eight systems will collect valuable fragmentation data which can be used to improve the mine’s blasting parameters.

Closer to home, Motion Metrics recently received a purchase order from a Canadian gold mine for a ShovelMetrics™ missing tooth detection system. The system will be installed on the mine’s brand new CAT 6060 hydraulic shovel and will help prevent potentially dangerous and costly missing tooth incidents.

A missing shovel tooth that goes undetected has a detrimental effect on digging efficiency and can end up being hauled away and jamming the crusher or damaging downstream equipment. Crusher jams are especially serious as they require a dangerous tooth retrieval process and long periods of downtime that can cost hundreds of thousands of dollars in lost productivity.