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What to Look for in a Fabrication Company for Mining Components

June 16, 2014
What to Look for in a Fabrication Company for Mining Components

A modern fabrication company can’t afford the luxury of manufacturing a few lonely products. This is the one-trick pony approach, and it’s typically not profitable. This fact-of-life statement applies to engineering plastic in the same way it does to any global industry, meaning companies must reach for a multi-faceted approach. More than this, the engineers driving the company to succeed must meet the challenges set by custom engineering projects. After all, we’ve sunk our tools into the depths of the oceans and the heights of mountains. Innovative polymer formulations are no different than any of these tales of success, creating customized solutions for mining applications with a fluid level of adaptation that can resolve any industry challenge.

The first authoritative step taken toward selecting a fabrication company is to evaluate that companies expertise in a certain field. It may seem counter-intuitive when we’re talking about embracing the larger picture in a huge engineering theater that spans the globe, but industry choice does necessitate experience in a field, and mining is a specialized work environment requiring a specialized approach. Opt for a company with at least several years of experience in the mining industry. This company will understand the unique environmental space, the often hostile environment that man has moved into in laboring to advance technological or monetary gain. The knowledge has a knock-on effect, a positive developmental force that shapes products to excel in geological conditions where heat can age components and humidity corrodes entire assemblies at a far greater rate than their above ground counterparts.

With this fundamental expertise guaranteed, flexible fabrication of key graded engineering plastics should be a natural outgrowth of the fabrication company, the creation of polymers with graded molecular structures designed for exacting purposes. Of course, every aspect of the selection process should be thoroughly researched. Communicate with the engineering department, ascertaining the fabrication techniques used to create the polymer variants, specifically defining what products are manufactured and what coatings are available. It’s not unusual to discover a leading company has grown to manufacture over 600 types of polyurethane products with a range of versatile applications covering everything from soft foam to rubber textures and, at the far end of the scale, the highly desirable durable materials factored to protect mechanical assemblies from constant wear-and-tear. That wear typically comes from the force of abrasion in a mining environment, from the constant rubbing of expelled ground-matter across screen media and belt-driven components. Polyurethane constructed screens come from a leading engineering plastic company in uniquely formulated shapes and options, all designed to defeat the hostile factors obstructing an expensive mining operation.

Logistical requirements get all of these components to the site fast, recruiting the fabricated material from a fully-functioning plant, communicating progress on an order, curing and evaluating the quality of the final product before shipping. Look for a company that’s the full-package, offering multi-faceted fabrication services, a unique understanding of the mining industry, and the ability to get the finalized product to the work site fast.