Last year a leading opencast mining company in Limpopo Province, after not having had contact with Reid & Mitchell (R&M) for a number of years, approached the division with a request to urgently provide refurbished 788 model wheel-motors to replace worn-out units for several of its large 190t capacity Komatsu 730E off-road dump trucks.
“Both we and the customer were in luck when they made this approach, as we were in a position to meet their request promptly,” commented René Rajzman, R&M’s Operations Executive
During the period when it had no contact with the customer the division greatly expanded its unit exchange (UNX) programme to include the refurbishment of wheel-motors and related electrical equipment for off-road dump trucks in the 190t to 220t load capacity range, including Komatsu 730E trucks.
“Consequently, when the customer approached us in October last year to ask us to supply them with six refurbished 788 model wheel-motors to replace worn units for three of their 730E trucks, we were able to supply two units almost immediately, followed by two in December and the remaining two in January this year, thereby enabling them to put the trucks back into service promptly,” said René.
Prior to expanding its UNX programme, R&M had offered a limited range of wheel-motor and related electrical equipment for large dump trucks under the programme.
”At that stage the equipment we offered under the programme was confined to those for the 776 model wheel-motor for 170t load capacity trucks, which are smaller than the Komatsu 730E’s. In our subsequent extension of our UNX programme, we introduced 788 model wheel-motors, alternators and grid blower motors to cater to all off-road dump trucks with load capacities of 190t and above,” René explained.
