Failure to consider critical plant design factors can leave you struggling to efficiently crush materials as you fall behind quotas, but, if you prepare and design well, your plant will help you meet your production goals.
The Placement of the Primary Crusher
Primary crusher placement is another important aspect to consider during plant design.
The closer the primary crusher can be to the pit area, the better. Reducing the haul distance from the pit area to the primary crusher will reduce the amount of mobile equipment needed, increase your production processes, and, ultimately, save you time and money on labor, fuel, and costs associated with mobile equipment maintenance.
The Volume of Production
A fourth consideration to make is the volume of production your plant requires to meet the sales projections. How many tons of each finished product will be needed to be produced per hour? How many per day?
Depending on your sales forecasts and production goals, you may require different equipments.Regardless, make sure to consider what your sales and volume objectives are as you work through plant design.
The Market Demand
Finally, it’s important to take market demand into account. This is a factor you can’t strictly control, and yet failing to design with market demand in mind can lead to costly shortages or surpluses.
It’s worthwhile to do the research to find out what your market is, and what it will be. Before you spend millions of dollars putting a huge plant in at a site, find out if your aggressive production goals will be met with a buying market. If you’re producing #8’s for an asphalt plant and demand drops, or demand for a different finished product increases, you have to have flexibility designed into the plant. Otherwise, you could be left with wasted resources and money.
Again, though, your optimum solution will depend on the goals you would like to achieve, and setting those appropriately will depend on the demand in your market.
Don’t rush into crushing without considering these factors. The work of planning and preparation will always set the stage for successful production.
