Reducing Unplanned Maintenance
A strategic approach to identifying high-wear zones, optimising inspections, and reducing shutdown frequency
If your operation is facing repeated shutdowns, unplanned interventions, or excessive wear on critical assets, you’re not alone.
This is exactly what one of our mining clients was dealing with. A processing plant struggling to keep equipment available due to wear-related failures, forced to shut down major assets every six weeks. In some cases, critical equipment required maintenance as frequently as every two weeks, causing constant process interruptions and lost production hours.
They didn’t need more equipment.
They needed a smarter maintenance strategy.
Our Approach: Targeted Inspections and Strategy Optimisation
We focused on two areas:
- Identify the High-Wear Zones
We began with structured visual inspections, looking at assets holistically, not just what broke, but where performance was silently being lost.This helped us:
- Detect critical wear areas
- Understand patterns of degradation
- Recommend targeted material upgrades (e.g. liner replacements in high-wear zones)
- Redesign the Maintenance Strategy
Generic inspections weren’t cutting it. We helped the client implement Preventive Maintenance Inspections (PMIs) that were:
- Tailored to the specific failure modes
- Focused on high-impact components
- Aligned with real-world asset behaviour
Rather than spreading effort thin, we focused attention where it mattered most.
Collaboration: A Core Element of the Solution
We worked side-by-side with both the client and their equipment vendors to ensure:
- Technical decisions reflected operational reality
- Input from all parties was embedded early in the process
- Implementation could happen without disrupting core operations
This led to a quick-win strategy focused on high-impact areas, while establishing a solid base for long-term improvements.
What to Do When Excessive Wear Disrupts Your Operation
If you’re facing similar symptoms, short maintenance intervals, unexpected failures, constant shutdowns, here’s what we’ve learned from this project that you can apply right now:
- Don’t just fix; investigate
Look deeper than the failed part. Understand where wear is accelerating and why. Often, the failure is a symptom, not the root cause.
- Prioritise critical zones, not everything
Optimising doesn’t mean doing more, it means doing the right maintenance, at the right time, on the right components.
- Engage your teams and your vendors
Insights from operators, planners, and suppliers are key to designing practical solutions that work in the field, not just on paper.
- Use planned shutdowns to reset, not repeat
Each shutdown is an opportunity. Plan improvements, track outcomes, and adjust based on what actually happens, not just what was scheduled.
- Build a loop, not a list
True reliability comes from repeatable, data-informed processes. Monitor, adapt, and refine, again and again.
Are unplanned shutdowns slowing your site down?
At Lead Asset Management, we help mining operations stop treating symptoms and start solving the real problem. Through wear analysis, maintenance strategy optimisation, and structured PMIs, we support teams in making smart decisions that drive real improvement.
Let’s talk about what’s behind your shutdowns, and how to build a maintenance approach that holds up over time.
LEAD Asset Management is a Mining Asset Management business in Perth: We provide consultation services for Mining, Utilities, Gas & Oil Industry in WA, Australia. Asset Management Services Perth: delivering tailored asset management solutions for mining in WA. Asset management strategies, projects, operational readiness, careers in asset management in Perth, Australia and more…Contact Lead Asset Management today.