SUMMER 2016
Distributor's Link Magazine Summer Issue 2016 / Vol 39 No3
Distributor's Link Magazine Summer Issue 2016 / Vol 39 No3
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48<br />
THE DISTRIBUTOR’S LINK<br />
STRESS INDICATORS INC<br />
202 Perry Pkwy #7, Gaithersburg, MD 20877<br />
TEL 240-631-7246 EMAIL sales@smartbolts.com WEB www.smartbolts.com TWITTER @SmartBolts<br />
WINDSOR SALT MINE SAVES MONEY & KEEPS MINERS<br />
SAFER WITH SMARTBOLTS ® UPGRADE by Stephanie McGuinn<br />
It could be tempting to assume that a company<br />
over a century old can’t be both cutting edge and a<br />
thought leader, but K+S Windsor Salt has earned that<br />
honor. The company, a household name in Canada, is a<br />
subsidiary of K+S AG and is using revolutionary fastening<br />
technology to enhance safety and reduce maintenance<br />
costs.<br />
K+S Windsor Salt operates a mine called Ojibway,<br />
in Ontario Canada, and recently retrofitted heavy mining<br />
equipment with SmartBolts® made by Stress Indicators,<br />
Inc. The cutting edge technology of SmartBolts lowered<br />
maintenance costs, shortened downtimes, and protects<br />
miners.<br />
Round The Clock and 1,000 Feet Down<br />
In a cavernous space about 1,000 feet underground,<br />
K+S Windsor Salt operates approximately 70 pieces<br />
of mobile equipment around the clock, including load<br />
haul dumps, mechanical scalers, undercutters, jumbos,<br />
ampholoaders, drills, forklifts, trucks, and club cars.<br />
The “room pillar” mining method has been used at the<br />
Ojibway location since 1955 to produce salt for uses<br />
including water softener, agriculture, and de-icing.<br />
Yasir Anwar, Maintenance Superintendent, oversees<br />
maintenance for all of the mobile equipment at the Ojibway<br />
Mine. He explained in a phone interview what generated<br />
the need for the mine to retrofit all their mechanical<br />
scalers with visual tension indicating SmartBolts.<br />
“During the scaling process, where broken product<br />
is created by scraping the back (roof) of the mine,<br />
a lot of stress is transferred over to the turntable of<br />
the scaling machine,” explains Anwar. Ojibway uses<br />
Gradall XL scalers 5110 and 5320. These behemoths<br />
weighing over 37 tons and standing nearly two stories<br />
high are expected to run around the clock for 250 hours<br />
consecutively, pausing for maintenance, and then run for<br />
another 250 hours. The constant pressure and vibration<br />
on the bolts that fasten the turntable to the tray, which<br />
is what rotates on the base of the giant machine, causes<br />
them to loosen, break, and stretch.<br />
BUSINESS FOCUS ARTICLE<br />
CONTINUED ON PAGE 124
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