Inspection & Maintenance of Skirt Liners

Companies are invited to submit a solution for the Inspection and Maintenance of Skirt Liners challenge within the BHP Austmine Supplier Innovation Program.

Deadline: Wednesday 15 December 2021
Site: Port Hedland Iron Ore Operations

The Opportunity

BHP's Port Hedland operations have 158 conveyors on site, which undergo regular maintenance shutdowns every 20 weeks to undertake condition inspection of conveyor belts and replacement of skirt liners and plates.

The current process for conveyor inspection and maintenance presents some key challenges:

Manual inspection is inefficient and time consuming and often provides inaccurate information
Manually removing, replacing and adjusting the heavy skirt liners and metal plates presents risks
Multiple people clean chutes in a challenging environment

Whilst there are extensive Safety Management processes in place to manage the safe execution of this task, the opportunity exists to further improve safety by developing a solution that removes personnel from risk.

Tooling & process solutions are sought to develop maintenance inspection, adjusting & replacement strategies to eliminate manual handling during maintenance of conveyor belts and skirt liners, and to maximise the availability of equipment through condition monitoring.

Submission Process

Suppliers are invited to submit a short-form proposal for this challenge by Wednesday 15 December 2021.

To participate in the challenge and receive further technical information, complete this form.

The Process

Phase 1: Seeking expressions of Interest and high level proposals

We have provided you with a preliminary and high-level overview of the challenge we are seeking to solve. Our ask is for interested suppliers to provide an equally high-level expression of interest and proposal overview from which we will evaluate and shortlist a set of suppliers for the next Phase.

Phase 2: Shortlisted Suppliers: Full Scope, Interactive Workshops, Written Proposal

Shortlisted suppliers will be invited to a more detailed and interactive process, working toward a full proposal. You will receive a more detailed scope, you will participate in a series of interactive webinars involving information and Q&A sessions with the operational project team, “Pitch” Sessions where you will outline your proposal to the team and receive feedback to then inform your ultimate written proposal. It is intended your proposal will be for a joint project to prove the concept, prototype and trial your proposed solution.

Phase 3: Award and Pilot

BHP will evaluate proposals and intend to select and award a contract to one or more suppliers for a Pilot Project.

Program Information

Find more information about the Supplier Innovation Program challenge process by viewing our webinar.

Contact [email protected] for assistance.

COMPLETE CHALLENGE REGISTRATION FORM