The industrial way to make product cost calculations in crushing & screening

Summary, in English

The main objective of this study is to introduce the new Sandvik’s production cost-model within Crushing & Screening (C&S) technology. So far, there have been different ways of determining different production costs in the industry, however, the previously published and presented methods have not been very efficient in calculating the costs per product and metric ton. Accordingly, the current study has been planned and started in collaboration with Lund University to provide an accurate and easy to implement cost estimation program to determine the costs for crushing and screening plants worldwide. The proposed model has been adapted to fit the C&S processes of different rocks/ores fractions. The result is presented as cost per ton of the end product(s). Within this paper the cost estimation results for 3 different crushing and screening plants are presented based on the information obtained from the following sources: a) documents at Sandvik SRP, b) Sandvik’s crushing & screening internal/external machines/plants data and information, c) literature studies, including the use of Sandvik’s internal/external simulation and software programs, d), visiting the crushing and screening plants,e) interviews, information systems’ data, and, f) testing and observations by ourselves. In order to improve the level of accuracy and the validity of the attained results, simplistic Monte-Carlo simulations have been used, where needed. The achieved results, so far, have proven the reliability of the model. The calculated cost estimations have shown an accuracy over 80% when they compared with real cost data obtained from plant practices. The current cost calculation model, will offer the possibility of: o Calculating the production costs in proposed and/or existing C&S plant. o Making detailed cost analyses for the end product(s) in proposed and/or existing C&S plants. o Determining the profitability of each finished product when it’s required. o Cost optimization by potentially cutting the cost for part of C&S plant with an existing plant practice.