Repairing and upgrading 9 broken down cranes in Western Africa

Earlier this year we’ve got a call from an iron-ore mining company from western Africa. They had a big problem with their crane fleet of 14 cranes.  Due to the challenging conditions in Africa, the bad roads, rough terrains and humid conditions, 9 of the 14 cranes were broken down.

Challenging conditions in Western Africa

A problem that, due to low employment, the company has been able to postpone for a long time. However, now that the company is doing better, and the workload is getting heavier, it is time for expansion and the 9 broken down cranes need to be repaired quickly.

In the week following the call, an engineer from Parts Supply flew to Western Africa, to review, test and list all malfunctions with the local operators and mechanics. The conditions in Western Africa are challenging. Roads and terrains are in bad shape, the humidity is high and there are limited tools and crane parts available. The result of these difficult circumstances was that the 9 cranes, of several different brands, were in a poor shape.

However, some malfunctions could be solved instantly, but because of a lack of maintenance on the cranes, other repairs required more time. Parts Supply drew up a quotation to repair each crane, with the intention to send several engineers to Western Africa for on-site repairs.

Maintenance plans and logistic plans

Once the quotation was approved, several of our best engineers flew over to western Africa for two weeks to fix 7 of the 9 broken down cranes. In the two weeks that followed all the required crane parts were delivered form China, with all logistic managed by Parts Supply. Seven of the nine cranes got repaired and were up and running again.

For the two other machines a subsequent plan was made, because these cranes were in a condition that was too poor to repair in this short timeframe. Our colleagues back at Parts Supply in The Netherlands, made a complete maintenance plan for these two cranes.  

Parts Supply Mobile Workshop

Besides fixing 7 of the 9 cranes, Parts Supply send a permanent mobile workshop to western Africa to make sure the local mechanics have the required tools and parts for small malfunctions in the future. In addition, our traveling engineers trained the local operators and mechanics to preform maintenance and small repairs on the cranes.

Since our client was so satisfied with our mechanical, hydraulic and electrical repairs, preventative maintenance and training, Parts Supply was asked to do the same on their second location.