Training time/The best shovel, excavator or dragline in the world will not live up to its potential if its operator is not well trained

摘要

Here are two things to consider. Firstly, every dollar on a minesite comes out of an excavator, shovel or dragline bucket. Secondly, a 5 percent improvement in operator performance can relate to a 5 percent decrease in cost per tonne. With those two thoughts in mind consider also that one of the highest trained workers on an opencut minesite is the dragline operator and that excavator and shovel operators are rated highly in the mining hierarchy. Dragline operators need to be highly trained because of the difficulties endemic in the use of a dragline. There is often a two to three second delay between moving a lever and getting a reaction. This is in a machine that can cast its bucket about 500m in front of itself and pick up 300-400t of earth in a single scoop. It is understood to take several years to train a dragline operator.