Engineering Issues by Justisiano Nurak, ST: Logistic

Engineering Issues by Justisiano Nurak, ST: Logistic

The ten logistics elements

Support and Test Equipment

Support and test equipment includes all equipment, mobile and fixed, that is required to perform the support functions, except that equipment which is an integral part of the system. Support equipment categories include:

1. Handling and maintenance equipment.
2. Tools (hand tools as well as power tools).
3. Metrology and measurement devices.
4. Calibration equipment.
5. Test equipment.
6. Automatic test equipment.
7. Support equipment for on- and off-equipment maintenance.
8. Special inspection equipment and depot maintenance plant equipment, which includes all equipment and tools required to assemble, disassemble, test, maintain, and support the production and/or depot repair of end items or components.
   

This also encompasses planning and acquisition of logistic support for this equipment.

Justisiano Nurak, ST

The ten logistics elements

Supply Support

Supply support encompasses all management actions, procedures, and techniques used to determine requirements to:

1. Acquire support items and spare parts.
2. Catalog the items.
3. Receive the items.
4. Store and warehouse the items.
5. Transfer the items to where they are needed.
6. Issue the items.
7. Dispose of secondary items.
8. Provide for initial support of the system.
9. Acquire, distribute, and replenish inventory.
   

Justisiano Nurak, ST

The ten logistics elements

Maintenance Planning

Maintenance planning begins early in the acquisition process with development of the maintenance concept. It is conducted to evolve and establish requirements and tasks to be accomplished for achieving, restoring, and maintaining the operational capability for the life of the system. Maintenance planning relies on Level Of Repair Analysis (LORA) as a function of the system acquisition process. Maintenance planning will:

1. Define the actions and support necessary to ensure that the system attains the specified system readiness objectives within minimum Life Cycle Cost.
2. Set up specific criteria for repair, including Built-In Test Equipment (BITE) requirements, testability, reliability, and maintainability; support equipment requirements; automatic test equipment); and manpower skills and facility requirements.
3. State specific maintenance tasks, to be performed on the system.
4. Define actions and support required for fielding and marketing the system.
5. Address warranty considerations.
6. The maintenance concept must ensure prudent use of manpower and resources. When formulating the maintenance concept, analysis of the proposed work environment on the health and safety of maintenance personnel must be considered.
7. Conduct a LORA to optimize the support system, in terms of LCC, readiness objectives, design for discard, maintenance task distribution, support equipment and ATE, and manpower and personnel requirements.
8. Minimize the use of hazardous materials and the generation of waste.
   

Justisiano Nurak, ST

Logistic

What is integrated logistic?

Integrated Logistics Support (ILS) is a technique introduced by the US Army to ensure that the supportability of an equipment is considered during its design and development. The technique was adopted by the UK MOD in 1993 and made compulsory for the procurement of the majority of MOD equipment. The aim of ILS is to address three aspects of supportability during the acquistion of the equipment.

• Influence on Design. This is an iterative process during the design of the main equipment to ensure that supportability aspects are considered. This is to ensure that user maintenance and routine servicing tasks can be performed easily and that existing tools and techniques can be used.
  

• Design of the Support Solution. Ensuring that the Support Solution considers and integrates the elements considered by ILS. This is discussed fully below.
  

• Determination and Procurement of the Initial Support Package. This calculates the requirement for spares, special tools and documentmentation is defined and that the quantity required for a given period is calculated, procured and delivered to support the delivery and operation of the main eaquipment.
  

The ILS management process which facilitates development and integration of the 10 individual logistic support elements to specify, design, develop, acquire, test, field, and support systems. There are 10 ILS elements:

1. Maintenance planning
2. Supply support
3. Support and Test Equipment/Equipment support
4. Manpower and personnel
5. Training and training support
6. Technical data
7. Computer Resources support
8. Facilities
9. Packaging, Handling, Storage, and Transportation (PHS&T)
10. Design interface
    

Justisiano Nurak, ST

Mining Engineering

Types of strip mining and drift mining?

• Strip mining is one of surface mining's type. Strip mining is the practice of mining a seam of mineral ore by first removing all of the soil and rock that lies on top of it (the overburden). It is similar to open-pit mining in many regards.
  Strip mining is only practical when the ore body to be excavated is relatively near the surface. Since colossal quantities of material often need to be removed, the excavating machinery used in strip mining is often among the largest such equipment ever constructed; drag line excavators and bucket-wheel excavators are common examples. There are two forms of strip mining - area strip mining, which is used on fairly flat terrain, to extract deposits over a large area. Contour strip mining, usually used in hilly terrain, involves cutting terraces in mountainsides following the contour of the land.

• Drift mining is one of underground mining's type. Drift mining is a method of accessing valuable geological material, such as coal, by cutting into the side of the earth, rather than tunneling straight downwards. Drift mines have horizontal entries into the coal seam from a hillside. Drift mines are distinct from slope mines, which have an inclined entrance from the surface to the coal seam. If possible, though, drifts are driven at just a slight incline so that removal of material can be assisted by gravity.

Justisiano Nurak, ST

Mining Engineering

Is open mining or closed mining more expensive?

The least expensive type of mining is an open-pit mine, and is always the very first choice of every developer where an orebody is located close to the surface, is large enough and has little overburden.

Open-pit mines seem simple, but every pit has to be taylor-made. The pit walls have to remain up first and foremost, so an engineer in in rock-mechanics has to determine a secure slope for the pit. There is also a delicate balance between how much waste rock can be mined in order to gain access to the ore that is valuable and the possibility of the pit’s deepness.

The location and size of the first bench of any open-pit mine is critical. It is excavated well into the waste rock that surrounds an orebody. And since each successive bench is a smaller size than the last one taken, the depth to which the pit can be mined is determined by location and size of the frist bench or cut.

The stripping ratio is the name of the amount of waste rock mined relative to the quantity of ore.in most cases, this ratio is high for the first bench and decreases steadily with each successive bench. A stripping ratio of 3 to 1 signifies that during the pit’s lifetime there will be three times as much waste rock mined as ore. An open-pit mine must be designed so that the cost of mining the waste rock does not exceed the value of the ore to make it profitable.


The principal cost advantage of open-pit mining is that the miners are able to use bigger and more powerful trucks and shovels – the equipment is not restricted by the size of the opening it has to work in. This permits quicker production, and the lower cost permits lower grades of ore to be mined too.

If an orebody is large, and it extends from great depth to surface, it is very common to start mining close to the surface from an open pit. This gives some early revenue while preparations are being made for mining underground of the orebody’s deeper parts. -miningbasic-

Justisiano Nurak, ST