More than 60 years of experience...

INNOVATION

SPOKANE INDUSTRIES, the industry leader in high quality, high chrome iron impact crusher wear parts, has developed a line of wear parts for use in material handling applications using Si-Tec®, their patented Ceramic Composite Technology.

Si-Tec® ceramic composites provide twice the wear life of standard parts in most applications which means:

·       Reduced liner costs per ton of rock processed

·       Fewer liner change-outs and interruptions

·       Quicker replacement

·       Safety - Reduced exposure to injuries associated with liner replacements

Spokane Industries has been an integral player in the crushed rock industry with their Spokane Crusher line, their extensive crusher wear parts line and their innovations in ceramic composite technology. With more than a decade of successful ceramic composite integration in impact crusher wear parts, Spokane Industries is leveraging this success with a burgeoning line of material handling wear parts.

ULTRA WEAR-RESISTANCE

One such success story involves their large Si-Tec® chute liners which are utilized in the world’s largest gold mine. These large liners are specifically designed for a snug fit in curved chutes. The dense copper/gold ore flowing across their liners is 8 inch minus and moves at a rate of 80,000 tpd. As this river of rock enters the transfer point, it slams into a rock box and then drops down into the chute which redirects the flow onto the next conveyor. Unlike the previously utilized high chrome iron liners, the Si-Tec® liners are fortified with highly abrasion resistant ceramic to better resist wear. Initial trials yielded relative wear life of 1.9x that of the high chrome iron liners. As high chrome iron liners are replaced, Si-Tec® liners are installed.

Mine maintenance personnel were so impressed with the longevity of Si-Tec® liners that they requested designs to address both high and medium wear areas of the chutes. Although the liners were designed and manufactured halfway around the world, Spokane Industries' Engineering and Development teams replicated the actual chute to verify and ensure a close fit of the liners within the fabricated chute (see image above). This proactive effort is typical of Spokane Industries’ approach to solving problems with cast composite technology.

WEAR-RESISTANT SOLUTIONS

Spokane Industries solves severe wear problems with their burgeoning line of material handling wear parts. Visit their site to download a brochure which depicts wear solutions to suit a variety of applications.

http://www.spokaneindustries.com/PDF/MiningWearPartApplications.pdf

If you need a custom shape, Spokane Industries' experienced engineering team will work with you to assess wear in existing parts and high wear problems in your plant. They will recommend and design solutions for your application that optimize wear life, simplify installation while effectively managing costs.

Spokane Industries is a world-class designer and manufacturer of cast and fabricated metal products. It is the parent corporation of three thriving companies, Spokane Steel Castings, Spokane Precision Castings and Spokane Metal Products.

Si-Tec® is registered in the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office

Use Si-Tec® Ceramic Composite wear liners to protect your material handling systems from the abrasion of ore and overburden high in silicates and quartz.

Their composites can be applied as large chute liners, skirt boards or wear plates.

Lean Manufacturing in the Steel Castings Industry

by Billy Newman

Lean Manufacturing Definition: Lean manufacturing or lean production, which is often known simply as "Lean", is a production practice that considers the expenditure of resources for any goal other than the creation of value for the end customer to be wasteful, and thus a target for elimination. In a more basic term, More value with less work. Lean manufacturing is a generic process management philosophy derived mostly from the Toyota Production System (TPS) (hence the term Toyotism is also prevalent) and identified as "Lean" only in the 1990s. It is renowned for its focus on reduction of the original Toyota seven wastes in order to improve overall customer value, but there are varying perspectives on how this is best achieved. The steady growth of Toyota, from a small company to the world's largest automaker has focused attention on how it has achieved this.

Lean manufacturing is a variation on the theme of efficiency; it is a present-day instance of the larger recurring theme in human life of increasing efficiency, decreasing waste, and using empirical methods to decide what matters, rather than uncritically accepting pre-existing ideas of what matters. Thus it is a chapter in the larger narrative that also includes, for example, the folk wisdom of thrift, time and motion study, Taylorism, the Efficiency Movement, and Fordism. Lean manufacturing is often seen, with the benefit of hindsight, as a progression from, or a better attempt at the same goal of, earlier efficiency efforts, that is, picking up where earlier leaders like Taylor or Ford left off, and learning from their mistakes.

Lean Manufacturing focuses on two main points, reduction of through-put time and elimination of waste. Through-put can be described as the time it takes an order to be received until it is on the shipping dock. Elimination of waste can be seen in several different areas. The Seven Wastes are: 1) Motion; any wasted motion to pick up or stack, walk and/or lack of direction or access, 2) Over-production; labor needed to process more than is needed, 3) Transport; multiple locations for the same information and/or wasted effort to transport work, 4) Inventory; maintaining excess inventory of raw materials, work in process, and/or finished goods, along with outdated or obsolete information, 5) Processing; doing more work than is necessary, 6) Waiting; any non-work time, and 7) Defects; everything required to rework or repair form.

For the Steel Castings Division of Spokane Industries, lean manufacturing is the single most effective strategy that will allow us to improve our quality while reducing our overall costs. In this commitment to Lean, we started with 6S, which is an acronym composed of Safety, Sort, Simplify, Shine, Standardize and Sustain.

Initiating the 6S practices made sense for a number of reasons. It was obvious the old way of approaching business practices was outdated. With obvious waste all around us it was easy to see that our production levels had plateaued, but the culture of the employees was not such that change would happen on its own. There was a veteran work force that had been doing it the same way for years, and they werent about to change, because in their view it wasnt broken. The visible change needed was provided by 6S to help jumpstart a revamped culture throughout the foundry.

We broke the foundry down into 10 sections and began implementing 6S. In each section we did an introduction class on 6S and Lean manufacturing, basically subscribing to a train-do model. Each member would actively participate in a kaizen event within a week of the class. In some cases we did the same section multiple times in order to achieve the desired results. At least one event was participated in by every foundry employee.

An additional step of our Lean journey began with the understanding of Autonomous Maintenance. Autonomous maintenance is the initial standard in Total Productive Maintenance or TPM. TPM is a proactive approach that essentially looks to reduce inventory (spare parts) and catastrophic failures by preventative measures.

As we proceed, we will continue our 6S and autonomous maintenance efforts while we perform Value Stream Mapping (VSM) of our processes. VSM is the series of processes that directly create value for the external customer by efficiently streamlining our work flows. We will do this to identify safety concerns, waste, bottlenecks, and communication breakdowns.

Tyrus Tenold, President of Foundry Operations for Spokane Industries, states, "To this point, a growing asset to Spokane Steel Castings are our Lean Manufacturing practices. As the culture continues to change, we implement new ideas on a regular basis. We have fully embraced Lean Manufacturing and we now look forward to seeing continuous improvements for the mutual benefits of customers and our ourselves."

Impact Crusher Wear Parts

by Tyrus Tenold, President Foundry Divisions

Spokane Industries is a world leader in the manufacturing of high quality wear parts for the impact rock crusher industry. Spokane Industries has for over 40 years been developing new and better alloys, processes and controls to improve product quality consistency and wear life year after year. We have demonstrated a long term commitment of excellence to this industry and specifically for this important product line.

Bob Tenold, current Board Chairman and former Chief Metallurgist for developing new alloys for these applications in the 60s, 70s and 80s observed, "Spokane Industries made a commitment in the early years of the impact crusher machines to develop and continuously improve alloys for wear parts. We also recognized that this passion for excellence can never end, so our current team of metallurgists and engineers are continuing this commitment."

In the business of impact crusher wear parts alloys, the phrase one size fits all does not apply! The very unique application of each crusher site must be understood before a correct match of metallurgy and machine can be made. Included in the analysis is type of machine running, type of rock to be crushed, size and volume of incoming material, is the material dry or wet, speed the rotor or table is running, and how many hammers or shoes are configured just to mention a few of the variables. The engineering and sales specialists at Spokane Industries have years of experience with these applications and impact machines and can assist the operators with the best parts for their unique operation.

Don Riley, Spokane Industries Wear Parts Sales, began his career building vertical shaft impact machines. He knows and understands how they work and what the strengths and weaknesses are with the different manufacturers. His knowledgeable recommendations have been extremely beneficial to Spokanes customer base as they assess the best parts for each application. As Don says, "no two machines or applications are the same. Spokanes Industries' history of matching the right parts with each machine has saved our customers money and reduced downtime which creates real value. That's what we bring to the operator."

For more information, please visit us at www.spokaneindustries.com or give our Wear Parts Sales Team a call at 1-800-541-3601. Youll be glad you did!

Spokane Steel Foundry Division - Melting and Pouring

by Dave Davis, Pouring Operations

Spokane Industries Steel Castings Division boasts two electric arc furnaces. We utilize one for our steel casting products and we use the other one for our high chrome iron wear parts. Each furnace has been updated with a touch screen computer which controls the tap position, amperage, and also controls all of the roof movements for charging the furnace. We also can keep track of which alloys are used in each heat, which heats we have run along with brick life for each furnace which helps maintain and control furnace life.

Our Steel Castings Division averages 5 tons of material per heat. We use only recycled steel in the charge that is loaded from the scrap pile once it is weighed. Our overhead crane transports it down to the furnace area and using an orange peel type bucket it is positioned over the furnace for loading. Once the furnace is loaded and running it takes about ninety minutes from start to finish during which time we monitor temperature and also the chemistry of the melt.

There are three different samples taken by the melters. The first is to check for carbon content and chemistry for the blow down. We blow down at least 30 points - this is to ensure proper cleansing of the metal. The melters then take the chemistry and calculate exactly what alloys are needed to meet our customers steel casting specification. After we tap the furnace, another final sample is taken to make sure that each and every element is within customer specification.

At Spokane Industries Steel Castings the melters use an ARL 3,460 spectrograph to analyze each sample taken. Once the final sample is taken and verified to be within customers specification the steel casting is then allowed to be poured.

The metal is transferred to the proper designated station by an overhead crane. First the crane retrieves up the holding ladle from the ladle area and transports it to the furnace for filling. Once the chemistry sample has been taken it travels to the designated pouring station to wait for verification that everything is within specification before continuing on and pouring.

Spokane Industries Steel Castings Divisions' ladle department is equipped to pour an array of weights from 50Lbs to 11,500Lbs. We have many different ladles at our disposal. The side pour ladles range from 500Lb capacity to 1,200Lbs and our bottom pours can accommodate 1,200Lbs and all the way up to 12,000Lbs. We also have a 3,000Lb lip pour and a 3,000Lb tea pot.

Our ladles are prepared using the board lining materiel that in turn provides a cleaner metal with less refractory. It also allows ease of building and faster turnaround times. This method accommodates both steel and iron pours. Each heat poured is monitored for which ladle is used, who poured, and we keep track of temperature to insure that a quality casting is produced.

Our pouring ranges vary by part and specifications. The steel can be anywhere from 2,850 to 2,920 degrees and the high chrome iron range is 2,500 to 2,560. The temperature is taken throughout the heat so as to maintain quality and consistency.

Andy Kruse, Process Control Engineer states "we also utilize a digital scale on our crane to monitor and capture weights which allows us to be more accurate with pour weights and allows us to not have short pours or a lot of end metal. This information also helps the melt side as well. We can maximize the heat size to what has to be poured and reduce end metal. We can also capture melt loss - all of which helps us to be more efficient and conserve power in this ever-changing steel casting industry."

Spokane Industries Steel Castings Division is a well managed, state of the art facility prepared to meet and exceed our customers expectations and specifications. On-time delivery, fast turn-around and industry leading quality controls are what our customers expect and exactly what we deliver.

High Quality Industrial Steel Castings & Crusher Wear Parts

High Quality Industrial Steel Castings and Crusher Wear Parts
by Richard Palmer

SPOKANE INDUSTRIES, through its Steel Castings, Metal Products and Precision Castings operations, has been providing customers around the world with cost effective solutions to their steel castings and industrial fabrication needs since 1952. Today, SPOKANE INDUSTRIES is a modern diversified company with plant and manufacturing facilities occupying more than 240,000 square feet. The company serves a large number of customers in many industries -- from aerospace, construction and agriculture, to transportation, aggregate processing, and manufacturing.

While the company has experienced decades of steady growth, SPOKANE INDUSTRIES continues to serve many of its original customers -- some of who still order steel castings from their original patterns. The reasons for that kind of loyalty are simple -- SPOKANE INDUSTRIES delivers -- with precision, performance and productivity that meet and often exceed customer expectations. Today, SPOKANE INDUSTRIES operates an environmentally clean, well-managed and technologically advanced organization dedicated to meeting the needs of its customers.

With over 50 years experience in wear resistant steel castings SPOKANE INDUSTRIES Wear Parts have proven superior performance under a variety of conditions across America, Canada, South America, Mexico and Australia.

Known as an industry leader in vertical and horizontal shaft crusher replacement wear parts, our stringent process controls coupled with our new automated molding line assures you a consistent fit. Heat-treating is essential for longer lasting and consistently uniform wearing parts to achieve maximum wear life. Our patented ceramic technology leads the way for reducing wear cost in most applications for Vertical Shaft Impact Crushers, extending wear life 2 1/2 to 3 1/2 times compared to standard high chrome parts.

We provide Mining Components that play a crucial role in the development of one of the worlds largest open pit mining shovels as well as the multi-hundred ton wheeled vehicles utilized to haul the materials to processing.

Additionally, our long wall components, cutting heads and steel castings for conveyor belts can be found in mines throughout the US, Australia and China. Short lead times, high quality and quick turnaround allow us to respond quickly to our customers needs.

SPOKANE INDUSTRIES has developed and maintains a long-term, successful relationship supplying high-quality steel castings to various oil-tool companies. Our steel castings are required to perform in the extreme low-temperature environment of the North Atlantic Ocean where failure could result in severe injury or death. We are able to achieve this by working closely with our customers on design requirements, fabrication to casting conversions, material selection, mechanical properties, and inspection requirements.

SPOKANE INDUSTRIES Is a place where were both personally and professionally committed to the satisfaction of each and every customer. In our relationships with customers, we try to keep in mind that youre not just coming to us to buy steel castings or metal fabrications, but to solve a particular problem. At SPOKANE INDUSTRIES, weve always taken pride in our company as more than just a place to work. Thats why we put all our experience, effort and technology at your disposal to find the solution you need to help make your business more successful. And thats why we go the extra mile to be sure youre satisfied that weve done the job on time and in a cost-effective manner.

Many of us are second and third generation employees - that's why we're proud of our workforce, where our record of employee retention and good labor relations is based on mutual respect and pride in a job well done. Were also proud of the fact that were a family-owned company. We would like to invite you to come and see the precision, productivity and pride that makes SPOKANE INDUSTRIES the right choice for your next job.