They are geographically separated but their passion for technology, customer service and big motors keeps two of ABB’s key mine hoist systems managers close. Most of the time.

“I love my job and working with my colleagues and our customers around the world, but it’s true that Mike and I tease each other,” says Tim Gartner the Montreal-based Head of Global Sales for ABB Mine Hoists. “We have a tradition of verbal sparring around electrical versus mechanical: If there’s a problem with anything at all, I’ll always say it’s a mechanical problem and he’ll say it’s an electrical problem.” 

The ‘Mike’ he’s talking about teasing is Mike Davis, ABB’s Johannesburg-based Global Product Manager for hoists. In truth, Gartner has equal respect for both the mechanical and electrical aspects of hoisting – as well as his colleague. 

“For the past 90 years or so all hoists have been a combination of electrical and mechanical expertise,” says Gartner. “The mechanical function of the hoist – or the winder as they call it in South Africa, Australia, the UK and some other countries – is making that ‘rope’ go up and down and being strong enough to be able to support the weight of the rope and the conveyance moving up and down, and come to a stop. The electrical part is to make that mechanical component turn at the right speed, at the right moment, accelerate to full speed, decelerate to zero speed, and most importantly apply the brakes. All hoists today are a combination of electrical and mechanical.”

Davis got his start in hoisting back in 1981 working with a small manufacturer of mine hoist rope coiling systems in Johannesburg. “We were a very small facility manufacturing extremely large components and that was where the bug bit me– I thoroughly enjoyed this transformation of raw pieces of steel into something that became the machine,” says Davis. 

“My boss was my mentor and I joined him as a very young fella and spent my first year or two working on the center lathes and drilling machines and those kinds of things. He encouraged me to study further and I did a diploma in production management. I ran our factory for 10 years and we grew from making single components to making the complete hoist. From there it became installing them, commissioning them and upgrading them – I’ve had a very ground-up career in hoisting!”

Gartner has been working with hoists since 1997 when he started with ABB working with customers mining potash in western Canada, transferring to Montreal in 2000 to look after North American sales. “In 2007, I transferred to Sweden with my family and during my time there was working purely with mine hoists, working with Australia, South Africa, North America and Bulgaria, moving back to Montreal in 2011,” says Gartner. While he’s based in Montreal, it’s now a global role. 

“I was previously Global Product Manager for ABB’s Hoist Electrical Systems, so I trained on the electrical side, but am now across all of our hoisting systems,” he says. “When I got into the business on the electrical side, the attraction was that it was exactly what I’d learned in technical school – how to make very big motors turn and how to control them.”

His appreciation of hoisting systems has only grown as his career has progressed. “They are sophisticated electro-mechanical systems that consist of a lot of moving parts that all need to be operating correctly for the system to work, that’s the technical aspect,” says Gartner. “The other aspect is I truly enjoy dealing with the people – from my colleagues to our customers throughout the world. I genuinely find it amazing.”

ABB has the unique capability to design, supply, install and provide long-term service and support of entire mine hoist mechanical and electrical systems.

Gartner and Davis have developed insights across their decades working with customers and product and commissioning teams for ABB mine hoist systems. 

“ABB is the big fish in the business,” says Gartner. “We have more than 100,000 employees and more than $US32 billion in revenue. But our people stay. I said to one customer, ‘We sold you a hoist in 2005 and then in 2009 we sold you another, and again in 2015, and you may notice that the people in this meeting today trying to sell you this hoist are the same people you dealt with in 2005.’ In that time many other players have gone through significant change, companies getting interested in the hoisting business when the mining sector was lively and then dropping out when it slowed down. I tell our customers that I can guarantee that that’s not the case with ABB. We’ve been in the business for over 130 years, and we are staying in the business.”

When Gartner talks about the employee churn in other companies, he’s not just talking about sales teams but right through the business including engineering and R&D. Mining is a cyclical sector but through the ups and downs, ABB hoists have been steadily lifting and lowering people and materials safely in underground mines around the world through it all and will continue to do so. 

“In about 1993-94, business was pretty bad for us in North America,” recalls Gartner. “There weren’t many new projects or upgrades at that time, and we did have some very big competitors but in that period they left the hoisting business. ABB was suffering as well at the time, but we continued to invest in the business.”

Davis says there was a similar downturn in South Africa around the late ’80s. “In the factory, all of the artisans were simply cleaning all the machines because there wasn’t a single piece of new work because big projects had just stopped,” says Davis. “We saw two of our big competitors disappear out of the market in South Africa at that time, but we went out there and found work and we survived.”

Shafts and hoists are fundamental for underground mines and when they’re designed together there are major benefits. “We have one customer that makes two calls when they’re about to build a new mine – one to us and another call to a shaft-sinking company, so we’re working closely with our customers shortly after they decide on the investment,” says Gartner. “Of course ABB’s portfolio also includes transformers, switchgear and other equipment that supports the operation of these mine hoists. At ABB, hoisting is an anchor business, and enables us to offer a holistic solution for our mining customers.”  

Smarter design saves money and elevates sustainability. “We work closely with the mine designers and the EPC and shaft-sinking teams,” says Davis. “Because we’re engaged with the projects early, we have the opportunity to guide decisions around their winders or hoists. In many instances we’ve worked with the sinking contractor and the customer to provide a hoist that the sinking contractor can use to dig the shaft, and then that hoist stays on site and becomes the permanent hoist.”

Davis estimates that around 20 years ago almost no projects followed the sustainable model of the dual-use winder/hoist, but that over the past 15 years, about 15 per cent of projects have followed this path, and the trend is growing. “We work closely with customers and the shaft-sinking companies to economize the sinking and the permanent duties so that the same winder can be used for both duties.” 

The ABB hoisting team’s deep experience means they can help customers ensure their significant investment is future-proof. “When customers are doing their mine design, they will generally say that they're expecting the life of mine to be 15 to 30 years and they are projecting X many million metric tons per annum production will be lifted out by the hoist,” says Davis. “From a mechanical point of view, I encourage them to put some contingency into those figures. What inevitably happens is that through the life of the mine they discover an additional resource underground and want to go a little bit deeper, or the market demands higher production.”

A few years ago when the price for platinum “went through the roof” and to meet the surging demand customers “were pulling rock out of the mines at an incredible rate, to the detriment of the machines” recalls Davis. “We broke a number of winders because they were overloading them and squeaking every last metre-per-second of speed out of them, and we started developing cracks and failures in the machines. So I suggest to customers that they build in a little bit of fat.”

Building a bigger, stronger hoist at the beginning makes sense when you realize that the hoists can run for decades. “We’ve got hoists that are 70-80 years old that have been upgraded electrically, but it’s still the same hoist mechanically,” says Davis.

Gartner says electrical upgrades ensure all the advances in computer controls are incorporated, delivering a modernized hoisting system when they’re deployed. He echoes his colleague’s recommendation that mine operators can save their future budgets a big hit by beginning with a hoisting system that can cope with higher production. 

“It’s pretty inexpensive to get a bigger hoist when it’s designed from day one, as opposed to making changes in the future,” says Gartner. “Customers can save a little money upfront by reducing the size of the motor, but invariably within a few years or sometimes even months of it being in operation somebody will say, ‘If only we had spent a little more money upfront for a bigger motor or thicker steel…’. There have been numerous times that I’ve had customers call wanting to make their hoist bigger and I have to tell them that the window has closed. Planning for a little more investment upfront in the hoisting system is probably the most important thing we try to guide our customers to do. Design it so you have some room to increase capacity and give your mine room for expansion.”

And do so confident that ABB’s hoisting business is definitely around for the long haul.