Wyoming’s coal mines, the top producers on Earth, set another tonnage record in 2007 at more than 450 million tons. That kind of production requires the biggest mining equipment in existence. Here, a crew worked to repair the massive bucket for a dragline at Black Thunder Mine. The 130-ton bucket can hold 200 tons, or 130 cubic yards, of dirt.
Photo by Walter Cook
Well-oiled machines
Lubrication is vital to mining industry; Enter SLS West
By Don Warfield
Staff Writer
If it is true that an army stumbles to a halt without good boots, it is equally true that mining equipment grinds to a halt without thin but vital layers of lubricant.
Making sure that doesn’t happen is the mission of SLS West Inc.
Since its establishment in the Powder River Basin in 1996, SLS West has been justly proud to provide lubricants that grease mining’s giant equipment.
But the company has built its business around more than just pumping a lot of oil and grease into big supply tanks.
Its trademarked slogan — “Engineered Lubrication Solutions” — means an integrated network of lubricants engineered to the customer’s specifications, complete lubrication systems installed and maintained on mining equipment, an inventory of parts to keep the systems running, 24/7 service, a fleet of service vehicles, and coterie of trained personnel.
The lubricants come first. SLS West sales manager Dan Knust points to a couple of prime examples of the integration of products and services that the company offers.
Bucyrus International, a major manufacturer of draglines and shovels, needed very specific lubricants for its gear systems. SLS West’s research and development unit, headed by Jim Paboucek, was up to the challenge.
It produced Open Gear Lube, which is now an approved lube for BI’s equipment.
BI is not alone. P&H MinePro has named SLS West an “alliance partner,” or preferred vendor, for lubrication products and services for its equipment.
In the Powder River Basin, nine mines rely on SLS West for their lubricants. Beyond the Basin, SLS services a coal mine in Sweetwater County.
Key to the SLS West success formula has been its approach to service. Call the company with your problem any time, night or day, and something increasingly uncommon happens: A human answers.
Within minutes, a crew is notified and swings into action. Maintenance manager Tony Nettles cites a recent case in which a mining shovel lube system went out of service at 10:30 p.m. Two SLS West technicians responded immediately, repaired the system, and had the shovel back in operation with minimal down time.
In fact, the techs checked back into the SLS shop before 1 a.m.
“We try not to waste the client’s money or the lube product,” Nettles said. “We diagnose the system and make the repairs right on the spot.”
That is where two of SLS West’s field assets comes into play. Rather than simply unloading barrels of lubricants at the mine’s warehouse, leaving mine personnel the task of servicing the equipment, SLS West bulk tank trucks pull right up next to the machine and pump the lubricants directly into the machine’s holding tanks.
The resulting savings of time and labor “help to keep us the lowest cost providers to the mines,” Knust said.
When system service or repairs are needed, SLS West’s “shops on wheels” move in. The mobile shops provide the commonly used components and tools technicians need to fix problems on the spot.
More shops on wheels are being readied, Nettles said, bringing the company’s total to six.
Expansion is in the wind on both the product and corporate fronts for SLS as well.
The company offers a dust suppressant, PennzSuppress. Following its proven formula, the company will provide the product, the tanks to store it and the pumps to implement it.
Thus far, one mine and a mining vendor are using the product, while another mine has tested it.
The company’s business has outgrown its original location on Gillette’s Schoonover Road.
In the near future, the company will build a new service complex and headquarters more centrally located in the fast-growing town’s industrial sector.
Minerals key focus of new health-care coalition
From staff reports
Wyomng’s energy industry is well-represented in a new coalition of Wyoming employers is working to see what they can do to address both the cost and quality of health care in the state.
Linda Vosika, representing Riverton-based Bonneville Transloaders, is a member of the new Wyoming Business Coalition on Health (WyBCH), as are Ken Cochran of Arch Coal in Wright, DL Lobb of Peabody Energy of Gillette, and Jana Cheetham of NERD Technology in Casper.
Lobb recently left Peabody to join Westmoreland Coal Co., based in Colorado Springs, Colo.
“We are a statewide organization whose main objective is to raise the visibility, viability and sophistication of conversations between employers — who are the ultimate payers of most health care expenses through their own insurance premiums and through taxes paid to the various levels of government — and those who deliver and influence the delivery of care,” said coalition chairman Mike McCraken, publisher of the Wyoming Tribune-Eagle in Cheyenne.
The group is not a health care policy group. Instead, WyBCH intends to make changes via business to business (buyer to supplier) conversations and negotiations.
As its first project, the group is planning to launch “HealthMapRx” — also known as “The Asheville Project” — a program proven to reduce emergency room visits and hospital admissions among employees with diabetes and those with cardiovascular disease (high blood pressure and/or high cholesterol). It has saved employers in other states millions, and the WyBCH believes it could also provide significant savings to employers in Wyoming.
The Coalition hopes to accomplish four things with this first effort:
1. Provide measurable and meaningful results for employers in the form of reduced health care expenditures;
2. Improve the health of the work force;
3. Help attract new members to the Coalition;
4. Help the Coalition get the attention of the health care delivery system and earn industry leaders’ trust and respect so that future dialogue is more fruitful.
A coalition kickoff event in April introduced coalition members and potential consumers of the coalition’s services to one another.
Included in the two-day get-together in Casper were sessions for stakeholders in the health care delivery system (hospital administrators, physicians, medical group managers, diabetic educators, pharmacists, nurses, etc.), as well as information for employers and the public.
Keynote speaker was Dan Garrett of the American Pharmacists Association Foundation, who helped launch “HealthMapRx” — also known as “The Asheville Project” – in Asheville, N.C., 10 years ago.
“We aspire to involve a large group of employers from all across the state. Our organization will be most attractive to employers who provide health care benefits to their employees. This includes both privateand public employers,” said Anne Ladd, who helped get the coalition organized.
“What is important,” said McCraken, “is that Wyoming employers understand they do have the power to make significant changes in the delivery of health care in this state. Employers created the system that exists today, and I am convinced that we are the only ones with the ability to make it better.
“By educating ourselves and working together, we can be a sophisticated and powerful force to help create an accountable health care delivery system that results in healthier people at competitive costs.”
He said the vision of the Wyoming Business Coalition on Health is an accountable health care system that achieves better care, healthier people and fair prices for employers and workers.
The mission of the Wyoming Business Coalition on Health is to promote leadership, collaboration and knowledge among employers to make available comparative cost and quality information on health care treatments and providers in order to continually improve health care quality and value.
Other coalition directors are Joe Coyne of CANDO (Douglas), George Bryce of Lincoln Financial Advisors (Casper), T. Chris Muirhead of Porter, Muirhead, Corina & Howard (Casper), Jim Roden of Crum Electric (Casper) and Tom Scott of First Interstate Bank (Dayton).
