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Compañía Minera Antamina South America (Antamina) is one of the largest open pit copper mines in the world. Located in the Huari Province of Peru 4,800 meters (15,700 feet) above sea level, the mine also has world class zinc reserves and produces silver, lead, and molybdenum.

H-E Parts approached Antamina and offered to assist in improving major component life and equipment cost of ownership. Antamina was experiencing insufficient brake life on P&H 4100 rope shovels and H-E Parts was able to solve this with tailored brake discs and plates. Following this success, Antamina agreed to trial H-E Parts Birrana™ enhanced wheel groups on Komatsu 930E trucks. At the time, Antamina’s 930E front wheel corners were achieving ~16,000 hours. In an effort to increase the life and performance of the equipment and lower the total cost of ownership, H-E Parts re-manufactured the wheel groups to incorporate proprietary Birrana™ enhancements, such as: 

  • Birrana™ control fit wheel bearing systems, including flexible spacers, hardened spacers, custom bearing design and specifications, and preload adjustments
  • Birrana™ contamination controls, including isolation seals, contamination guards, and contamination kits 
  • Birrana™ brake wear gauges allowing easy and fast brake wear measurement, reduced downtime, and improved safety

Through Birrana™ improvements, personalized advice and expertise, and post-rebuild equipment monitoring, Antamina’s 930E front wheel groups are now running with over 24,000 hours on them.  This has led to more than 80 wheel groups rebuilds at Antamina. H-E Parts’ ability to stock more components for replacement programs, allowing reduced repair lead times, as well as flexible approaches to repair costs were highly valuable to Antamina.