Haul fleet, crushers and conveyors against an ore-first date
Commissioning software for open pit mines where mobile fleet, fixed crushing plant and dewatering all have to prove out before the first truck tips ore.
An open pit build mixes civil earthworks, a primary crusher station, overland conveyors, dewatering pumps and a haul fleet that has to be commissioned truck by truck against OEM acceptance criteria. Deskely holds every fixed asset, mobile unit and test in one register with the ore-first gate and the statutory mine inspectorate sign-off built in.
- Fixed plant
- Primary crusher, conveyors, stockpile
- Mobile fleet
- Haul trucks, shovels, dozers, graders
- Gate
- Ore-first
- Authority
- Statutory mine inspectorate
Choose your project type
The problem
The crusher OEM, the conveyor package and the fleet supplier each commission their own scope and leave.
A primary crusher station and its downstream overland conveyors are usually supplied and commissioned by separate vendor packages, each with its own acceptance test and its own vendor rep flying in for a fixed window. The dewatering contractor pump-tests the pit sumps on a different week entirely.
On a remote pit with a FIFO workforce, nobody wants to fly a specialist back out because a punch item from the belt scale calibration was never closed before the crew demobilised.
Deskely puts every fixed and mobile asset in one register with one status model, so the site can tell an ore-first steering meeting exactly what is signed, what is open, and which open item is actually blocking.
Setting up the register
Crushers, conveyors, pumps and haul units are tagged assets with their own commissioning path.
Mechanical equipment lists, conveyor general arrangement drawings and pump schedules are parsed into a reviewed register, so every apron feeder, jaw crusher, idler and belt scale carries its drawing reference and OEM data sheet from day one.
Pre-commissioning checklists, no-load and load-tested run sequences, and OEM acceptance criteria are templated once per equipment type and instantiated across every unit in the primary and secondary crushing circuit.
Mobile fleet units are commissioned against the same register as fixed plant, with each haul truck, shovel and dozer carrying its own delivery inspection, break-in hours and OEM sign-off before it is released to production.
Wet commissioning and ramp-up
First rock through the crusher is a functional test, not a milestone photo opportunity.
Dry commissioning proves motors, belts, chutes and interlocks run empty and safe; wet commissioning proves the same equipment under load with real ore, tracking throughput, power draw and vibration against OEM acceptance bands as the ramp-up curve climbs toward nameplate capacity.
Dewatering pump-out records, pit slope monitoring readiness and blast clearance procedures are held as their own record set, because they typically gate both worker safety and the statutory mine inspectorate's sign-off ahead of first blast.
Open findings from wet commissioning stay attached to the asset with an owner and a deadline, so a conveyor is not declared ready for continuous operation on the strength of one clean shift.
Handover and ramp-up to nameplate
Production inherits a pit that will run in shifts, in dust and in weather, for the next twenty years.
OEM manuals, as-built drawings, spares lists and warranty registers for fixed plant sit against the same asset the maintenance planner will search for on the first breakdown, while fleet handover packs carry break-in hours and service intervals for every truck.
Because the dossier builds continuously against the register, a handover-to-operations pack for the crushing circuit is an export rather than a scramble assembled the week before the ramp-up review.
Every signature keeps a name, role and timestamp, which is what the statutory mine inspectorate and the operations readiness review both rely on before ore-first is declared complete rather than provisional.
Geotechnical monitoring and blast clearance
The pit wall is a live structure, and the radar, prism and piezometer network that watches it has to be commissioned before the first bench is blasted.
Slope stability radar, robotic total stations reading prism targets, and vibrating wire piezometers in the pit wall are usually installed and calibrated by a geotechnical monitoring specialist on a schedule that runs independently of the crusher and conveyor commissioning, yet a blast permit cannot be issued without a live, alarmed monitoring feed covering the area being fired.
A radar with an uncalibrated baseline or a prism network with unverified line-of-sight to the geotechnical engineer's workstation looks fine in a commissioning photo and fails exactly when a wall starts to move, which is the one moment nobody wants to discover the alarm threshold was never actually tested against a known displacement.
Deskely tracks each radar unit, prism target and piezometer as its own tagged asset with its calibration and alarm-threshold verification record, so blast clearance sign-off references a live monitoring network with a proven baseline rather than an installation certificate from months earlier.
What the ore-first review reads
The records a mine manager actually pulls before releasing the pit to production.
An ore-first sign-off draws on fixed plant and mobile fleet records held to different standards by different vendors. The dossier collects both so the statutory inspectorate and the operations readiness review work from the same evidence set rather than reconciling two.
Conveyor belt alignment and guarding sign-off
Idlers, tracking and guarding meet the OEM tolerance before the belt is loaded
Dry commissioning, before first ore transfer
Primary crusher no-load and loaded run record
Bearings, drive train and liners perform within vibration and temperature limits under rock
Dry run, then wet commissioning during ramp-up
Belt scale calibration certificate
Tonnage reported to the mine plan matches material actually moved
Commissioning, then on the recalibration cycle
Dewatering pump-out test record
Sump capacity keeps the working faces dry through a design storm event
Wet commissioning, ahead of the first wet-season bench
Slope monitoring alarm-threshold verification
Radar and prism alarms trigger at the displacement rate they are set for
Before the first blast clearance is issued
Haul truck delivery and break-in inspection
Each unit meets OEM acceptance criteria before release to production hours
On delivery, and again at break-in hour completion
How it runs
From first earthworks to the first truck tipping ore.
Open pit programmes reward structure set up before the crusher steel arrives, because ore-first is the point where every unclosed vendor punch item becomes a production delay.
- 01
Model the circuit
Primary crushing, overland conveying, stockpile reclaim, dewatering and the haul fleet modelled as subsystems, each with its own completion path.
- 02
Parse the equipment set
Mechanical equipment lists, conveyor GAs and pump schedules drafted into a reviewed asset register with OEM data attached.
- 03
Template the test set
Dry run, wet commissioning and OEM acceptance tests defined once per equipment type, instantiated across every crusher, conveyor and pump.
- 04
Gate ore-first on signed evidence
Ore-first readiness reported from signed records, with statutory inspectorate sign-off and punch tracked to closure.
FAQ
Questions about Open pit mines scopes.
Keep reading
Mining and minerals commissioning
The full sector view: commissioning process, ramp-up, statutory sign-off and the terminology behind them.
Read moreCertificates
Mechanical completion, ready-for-commissioning and handover-to-operations certificates issued from signed records.
Read moreAI drawing parser
P&IDs, equipment lists and single-line diagrams turned into a reviewed tag register instead of months of typing.
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