In his own words
“Exactly so — I applied that very principle at New Vaal Colliery and turned an old fleet of 120,000-hour-plus Hitachi haul trucks around within six months, to a fleet reliability of 90%-plus.”
Steve Möller — Divisional Engineer at Koingnaas, to whom the author reported during the 2000 turnaround; later Senior Engineering Manager at New Vaal Colliery, where he led this fleet turnaround; now retired. Quoted with his agreement.
Why this case matters
The easy explanation for an unreliable fleet is age — and the easy answer is capital. New Vaal proves the harder, cheaper truth: a fleet with 120,000-plus hours on the clock reached 90%-plus reliability with no replacement programme, because the constraint was never the iron. It was the system around the iron.
This is the same principle proven at Koingnaas: identify the correct work, plan it, execute it with precision, and make the work visible so the team holds itself to it. Applied to a mobile fleet instead of a fixed plant, the method translated directly — disciplined work management, precision maintenance, and visual control of what is due, what is done, and what is overdue.
The principle that travelled
- The correct work, identified. Effort concentrated on the failure modes that actually stopped trucks — not on maintaining everything equally.
- Planned and executed with precision. Maintenance done properly, once — with protected windows to do it right — beats paying repeatedly for rushed repairs.
- Made visible. Work status visible to the whole team produces what no report can: peer pressure, ownership, and pride when the day’s tags are turned.
The lesson
Reliability is a question of system, not budget or technology. An old fleet run on a disciplined system will outperform a new fleet run reactively — and it will do it within months, not years. That is as true for haul trucks as it is for a fixed plant, which is exactly the point: the Practical Asset Management Framework is asset-agnostic, because it manages the work, not just the machine.