CASE STUDY

“ARMS Reliability based their strategy on the RCM approach, what does it

do, when does it fail to do what it was designed to do, what practices should

be developed to ensure it continues to do what it was designed to do for

a designed period. ARMS Reliability are recommended for other Barrick

projects.”

Using Reliability Centered Maintenance, ARMS Reliability Help Barrick Gold Develop Robust Justifiable Maintenance Strategies For The Pueblo Viejo Mine Development In The Dominican Republic

Business Need

The Barrick Gold Pueblo Viejo Mine Development is located in the Dominican Republic, approximately 100 kilometers northwest of the capital city of Santo Domingo. The project is advancing in line with its $3.0 billion capital budget, with construction of the mine nearing completion and commissioning already commenced in various areas of the mine. The mine is currently forecasting 23.7 million ounces of reserves resulting in an expected mine life of over 25 years.

With the mine development nearing completion the project team had the goal of having a complete asset strategy in place prior to the start of operations. This meant ensuring the introduction of a robust and justifiable maintenance strategy that included both predictive and preventive tasks ready for deployment and upload into Oracle EAM.

The project team identified the use of Reliability Centered Maintenance (RCM) as a means to reach their goals, and decided to engage ARMS Reliability to expedite the process. The project team was initially attracted to ARMS Reliability because of their proven RCM expertise and previous experience completing similar studies for mining clients such as BHP Billiton.

Barrick Gold – Pueblo Viejo had 3 main objectives:

• DevelopmentofPreventiveMaintenanceInstructions(PMI)’sthataddedvaluetothebusiness• ReviewOEMrecommendations,andprovideascientificapproachforjustifyingthefrequencyofPMs• EnsureparticipationfromallPVDCmaintenanceandoperationssections

The project team viewed this initial study as a curtain raiser to the future of its preventive maintenance program. Over the coming operational years the strategy will be groomed to better suit the plant needs. For example PMs will be amended,workinstructionsupdated,frequenciesrefinedagainstfailureinformation,additionoftasksetc.

Action/solution

The ARMS Reliability approach is to develop a FMEA structure which identifies the likely failure modes for each asset and describes maintenance tasks to address them. The RCMCost module of Availability Workbench has the features necessary to develop optimum maintenance plans, predict budgets, resource requirements,andtotallifetimecosts.Maintenancetasksaredescribedandestimatesforlabor,materialsandequipmentareassigned. The optimum type of task (Run to Fail, Preventive, Inspection,Monitoring,CommissioningorRedesign)ischosen.The optimum interval between tasks is also established, and task groups defined to ensure resource efficiency and minimal planned downtime. This step is the decision making phase of the Maintenance Plan Development and where the ARMS Reliability facilitator involves operators and maintainers of the equipment.

ARMS Reliability worked closely with the Barrick Gold – Pueblo Viejoprojectteam,OEM’sandsubjectmatterexpertstocollectthe most helpful project data. ARMS Reliability were able to call upon an extensive project library to help populate various equipmentitemswithpre-populatedfailureinformation,wheresite personnel did not have experience or OEM information did not exist.

In 8 months ARMS Reliability has developed approximately 500 maintenance plans for 2770 assets which cover nearly 50% of the Pueblo Viejo facility.

Following the creation of the maintenance plans,work instructions to support the maintenance tasks identified in the maintenance strategy are written. The ARMS Reliability solution has the ability to produce large amounts of documentation throughitsWorkInstructionGeneratortool. Thisprovidesforjob instructions that are directly written in the strategy selection tool are downloaded to templates thus ensuring standardization of the maintenance plan and job instructions which can be easily updated.

ARMS ReliabilityAustralia6-8SinclairStOceanGroveVIC3226Ph: +61 3 5255 5357Fax:+61352555778

USA3921 Steck AveSuite A120 Austin TXP: 512 795 5291www.globalreliability.com

“We saved a large amount of time by using the Availability Workbench (AWB) to manage the process plus having a

facilitator ensures that there is someone dedicated to the process that is unencumbered”

Project Deliverables for Maintenance Strategy Development• DetailedRCMmodelsforequipment

• DevelopaFunctionalAssetHierarchy

• FMEADrilldown(Canbeusedtosetfailurereportingcodes)

• MaintenancePlansforuploadtoCMMSsystem

• WorkinstructiondocumentsconformingtoaBarricktemplate

• Zerobasedmaintenancebudgetpredictions

• Laborresourcepredictions

• Sparesusagepredictions

• FMEA&FMECAreports

• Identificationofhighriskfailuremodes

• EquipmentCriticalitybasedondefinedthresholds

BenefitsBarrick Gold Pueblo Viejo has identified some key advantages of using Reliability Modeling tools for improving asset management plans:• ItprovidesBarrickGoldwithavaluablemeansofeducatingthe operatorsandmaintainersinwhatthecriticalareasrequireto ensure high levels of plant availability.• Itprovidesasystematicprocessofknowledgecapturethatcan be challenged and updated over the life of the plant.• BarrickGoldPuebloViejoknowsthatindividualequipment, failures and maintenance actions are seen in context of overall plant performance.• Barrickwasabletogainenhancedknowledgeofthenewplant. As new people were introduced to the site, the RCM process was used to gather their knowledge and information, as well as being a communication tool for the project team to explain the chosen strategy • The approach taken ensures the maintenance plans are consistent with the expected system performance and design objective.• PartneringwithARMSReliabilityhasenabledBarricktoincrease the capabilities of its team and meet necessary training regulationsbytrainingtheteaminthetechnologyandtechniques• Additional benefits will be realized as Barrick continues to implement the optimized maintenance strategy.• Thegenerationofastandardsetofassetstrategieswhichcanbe shared with similar Barrick facilities worldwide.• Data that is collected in the future can be plugged into the simulation tools to create updated models and revised strategies.• Barrickisnowequippedwithtoolsitcanusetogeneratelong-term results.