Altra Motion occupies more than 80 per cent of the dragline braking business in the Bowen Basin. As a result, the OEM is looking to replicate the same success in the Hunter Valley.
Founded in 1946, Altra Motion brand Twiflex is a global leader in innovative braking solutions for industrial applications.
The company has solved brake concerns for companies across the Australian mining industry, with its caliper disc brakes a dragline game-changer.
Twiflex first supplied caliper disc brakes for draglines in the 1970s for Rapier 1000 and 2000 series machines, and today – through Altra Motion – has been providing the local dragline industry with market-leading brakes for the past 20 years.
Altra Motion has established a strong foothold in the Bowen Basin region of Queensland, where it occupies 82 per cent of the dragline braking business, and its credentials are equally applicable to the Hunter Valley region of New South Wales.
Altra has launched a Newcastle service facility to support its NSW customers. It has the personnel to attend to any dragline breakdowns in the Hunter region, providing original equipment manufacturer (OEM) spare parts, facilitating stocking programs, and completing service packages.
Given Altra Motion is the OEM of Twiflex brakes, the company can communicate internationally with its factories if there are any specific product concerns.
“Being the OEM alleviates errors,” Altra Motion national marketing manager Gabriel Brooks told Australian Mining. “As the OEM, we can go directly to our factories overseas for complete solutions to any problems.
“This expedites the service process, replaces the need to go through a third party, and eliminates mistakes.”
Altra Motion NSW sales manager Daemon Flack said “things can get lost in translation” when multiple companies are involved in the service process.
With 26 brands under the Altra Motion name, the OEM can also call on the expertise of its many brands to answer service queries or resolve a product or mechanical engineering issue. This could include the likes of Svendborg, Marland or Ameridrives.
But this doesn’t take away from Twiflex’s capacity as an individual brand, one that offers the most extensive range of industrial caliper disc brakes in the world.
“The depth of the Twiflex brand is extensive, and the factory engineering knowledge is extensive,” Altra Motion business development manager Gregg Booyens told Australian Mining.
“If you look at what Altra Motion as a business brings – 20-plus brands with factories worldwide and the depth of support that comes with that. The factory training our technicians receive, it’s not just Twiflex; it’s also Svendborg, Marland and Amerigear, et cetera.
“The depth of training we receive as Altra Motion employees brings more than just Twiflex to the table as far as our customers are concerned and the workshop support and back-up we can offer our customers.”
Booyens said the Australian dragline industry was in good hands through Twiflex’s brake offerings, with Altra Motion’s many other brands able to provide their unique perspectives, if needed.
“This is why we’ve been so successful in the Bowen Basin – the ability to provide that holistic, end-to-end support from across the Altra Motion business,” he said.
The Twiflex caliper disc brakes can increase brake efficiency and reliability, with the ability to dissipate heat while simultaneously decreasing maintenance costs and improving braking capacity.
Booyens said the Twiflex brake range ticks many boxes.
“If I was a mining company, why would I use a Twiflex brake system? Working with mines for 12 years since I’ve been in Australia, they’ve got three parameters they work around,” he said.
“Number one is reliability, number two is the ease of maintenance, and the third parameter is the total cost of ownership and Twiflex ticks all three.
“You can easily check the installation of brake pads, and because you’re not removing the brake unit off the machine, it’s more cost-effective and there is reduced maintenance time.”
Altra Motion Queensland area sales manager Gavin Ellis said there are also fewer parts, given the compact size and simple nature of the Twiflex disc brakes.
“The brakes are easily accessible, and they are easy to remove from the machine; all we are changing is the pads,” he told Australian Mining.
“The entire brake system arrives as a unit at an Altra Motion service facility and we can repair it in-house. The turnaround time is a couple of hours, so the customer saves money on downtime while we also prevent future breakdowns.
“And that’s proven – we rarely have a customer complaint regarding our brakes.”
Flack said Altra Motion could also achieve cost savings compared to its competitors, with few other solutions that rival the Twiflex brake system.
Twiflex brakes are often retrofitted onto draglines to replace drum and axial brakes, which have their downfalls.
Other brakes are typically heavier and larger than caliper disc brakes, meaning hoisting equipment is often needed to remove the brake. At the same time, they only have one surface to dissipate heat, meaning they are thermally inefficient and have a high risk of failure.
It can often take up to two hours to realign other brakes and change pads, and changeouts need to happen more often as problems arise from misalignment between the drum brakes and its shoes.
Flack said there are also several sustainability benefits of implementing a Twiflex brake system.
“There’s no risk of oil leaks with the Twiflex brakes because they’re a spring-applied pneumatic release, which means they run on filtered air,” he said.
“The evolution of organic compounds for braking material, such as the pads, is getting better and better. As a result, the brakes are environmentally friendly and have improved safety outcomes, as they’re asbestos-free, meaning there are no respiratory problems related to dust inhalation.”
As Altra Motion ramps up its NSW service capability, the company hopes to replicate its Bowen Basin success in the Hunter Valley. And given draglines play an essential role in both regions, there’s no reason why the OEM can’t.
With 82 per cent of the draglines in the Bowen Basin operating on Twiflex brake systems and more and more Queensland customers converting to Twiflex systems each year, Altra Motion has a clear blueprint for underpinning its NSW ambitions.
This feature appeared in the November issue of Australian Mining.