Project ‚Powerful giant shaft for coal-mining excavators’

Customer Information

Company FLSmidth (formely Sandvik)
Sector Plant construction * Cement- & minerals production
LocationLeoben, Austria & locations around the globe
Employees> 12.000 employees worldwide
Revenue> 2 billion

Project start2006 – ongoing

Project description

Initial situation 

FLSmidthcontacted MAS because a supplier had become unable to deliver the parts necessary to build 3 bucket-wheel excavators for coal-mining at very short notice. FLSmidth feared that they would have to put off the client in India until the parts were available again.

Key-data of a bucket-wheel excavator

  • Part weight of 21 t  
  • incl. a 400 mm bore over a length of almost 6 meters 
  • Outer diameter of 2,7 m

Solution

FLSmidth Antriebstechnik MASMAS Engineering acted as a general contractor for this project with a contract volume of EUR 890.000,– and took care of the coordination of the 6 companies involved and the status reports for the organization of the entire process. Despite the complexity of the parts of the bucket-wheel’s shaft our extensive pool of competent suppliers enabled us to fulfill all requirements including pre-assembly and testing and to deliver within 42 weeks. We organized/span>

  • the raw material,
  • the forging,
  • the external machining,
  • core hole drilling,
  • the crack and hardness testing,
  • packaging and
  • free delivery to the site in India.

The support of the entire process by MAS with a very short delivery time also saved the customer the higher expenses for air freight.

Highlights

When we started this project we did not know how much time it would take to build components of this size and with these specifications. At the beginning both the customer and we therefore assumed an 80-week delivery period. Thanks to our wide network of suppliers and the well-organized project management on our part we were able to set and guarantee the delivery date at 42 weeks. We outdid ourselves in the streamlined processing of this project and in the end were able to deliver after 34 weeks plus 5 weeks shipping. The progress and test report was also completed to the end customer’s full satisfaction.
We grow with the challenges our customers set for us and extend our know-how and expertise with every customized project.

Customer Statement

Even though I was doubtful in the beginning, we had no other choice than to believe Mr. Haas’s reassurances. And it did not take long for MAS and its CEO to gain our trust with a perfectly functioning flow of information and the reliable and unprompted delivery of the project status reports. What surprised our quality assurance department the most was that the ITP reports were delivered and maintained on time and 100% compliant to our company’s standards. Due to this great collaboration MAS managed to be accepted as a system supplier to our global corporation. In the now many years of our collaboration MAS has always taken care of any difficulties which came up promptly and with great commitment and has always solved them to our full satisfaction. What impresses me most is the openness and honesty of the CEO of MAS also in problematic situations, which in turns gives us a secure overview of the project at all times.

Purchasing Manager, Sandvik