P&H Mining

P&H Mining Equipment Inc.

Type	Subsidiary (Parent: Joy Global)
Industry	Mining
Founded	in 1884
Headquarters	Milwaukee, Wisconsin
Key people	Randy W. Baker, President & COO
Products	Electric Mining Shovel Draglines Blast Hole Drills
Employees	2,600 P&H Mining Equipment and P&H MinePro Services combined
Website	P&H Mining.com

P&H Mining Equipment designs, builds and supports a line of drilling and material handling machinery marketed under the "P&H" trademark and applied to minerals and energy surface mining operations worldwide. The firm is an operating subsidiary of Joy Global Inc.

Parent Company Overview

Joy Global Inc. (JGI) is a mining machinery and service support company based in Milwaukee, Wisconsin USA. It consists of two operating units – P&H Mining Equipment and Joy Mining Machinery. P&H Mining Equipment specializes in the design, manufacture and support of equipment applied to surface mines. Joy Mining Machinery specializes in equipment and support applied to underground mine operations.

P&H Mining Equipment History

Industrial artisans Alonzo Pawling and Henry Harnischfeger started the manufacturing business that would evolve into P&H Mining Equipment in 1884 in Milwaukee, Wisconsin USA.

Alonzo Pawling.

Henry Harnischfeger.

Pawling was a castings pattern maker. Harnischfeger was a locksmith machinist with some engineering training. Both individuals served within the Whitehill Sewing Machine Company factory in Milwaukee starting in 1881.^[1] Concerned that Whitehill business operations were drifting toward failure, Pawling exited the firm to start a small gear machining and pattern making shop in 1883. Needing more gear machining expertise and capital, Pawling persuaded Harnischfeger to join his firm as an equal partner. Their Pawling & Harnischfeger Machine and Pattern Shop officially began on December 1, 1884.

Components and Assemblies Suppliers

Pawling and Harnischfeger initially supplied industrial machinery components and assembly service support to large manufacturing operations in Milwaukee. Their customers included industrial knitting machine manufacturers, brick makers, grain drying equipment manufacturers and beer brewers. When an overloaded overhead bridge-type crane collapsed within the foundry operations of a nearby heavy equipment manufacturer known as the Edward P. Allis Manufacturing Company, Pawling and Harnischfeger rebuilt the crane with an improved and simplified design.

Word spread about the more reliable and easy-to-maintain crane built by Pawling & Harnischfeger. Soon other manufacturing and warehouse operations began to ask for similar lifting machines from the partners who were increasingly being referred to by their last-name initials, "P&H." Over time, that short-hand reference would become the enduring trademark for the firm and its product line and service business.

Pawling & Harnischfeger soon transformed their business into an industrial cranes manufacturing and service operation. A bank panic in 1893 caused demand for cranes to plummet however, prompting P&H to look for another product line that might help them reduce business risk amid economic downturns. They turned their attention to earth moving machinery, as America was in the midst of an infrastructure and construction boom that required large volumes of such equipment.

Earth Moving Machinery Era Begins

Pawling and Harnischfeger realized that their ability to succeed in the manufacture and support of earth moving machinery would require them to provide exceptional quality and service value for their construction and mining industry customers. There were many reputable suppliers of such equipment in place at that time.

Pawling and Harnischfeger decided to continue with a business strategy that had served them well in winning and keeping industrial equipment customers. They concentrated on designing and building best-in-class machines using best available materials and manufacturing methods, even if that strategy might cause their equipment purchase prices to exceed prices for similar machines from their competitors. Despite their higher purchase cost, such machines demonstrated consistently low operating cost, typically calculated on a cost-per-ton or cost-per-yard moved basis.

As with the growing demand they experienced for their P&H overhead cranes, the firm soon began to manage strong demand for their earth moving machines that included pipeline trenchers, draglines and power shovels. Word spread throughout the construction and mining industry that P&H digging machines were rugged, reliable, productive and easy to maintain.

By 1920 the P&H digging machinery product line included P&H Model 206 and Model 300 machines that the firm produced in batches of five or more. By 1926, P&H digging machinery was effectively in distribution around the world including Mumbai, India.

Wherever large numbers of P&H digging machines were deployed, the firm invested in a nearby regional service and parts logistics infrastructure to help ensure that its customers could optimize machinery availability and productivity.

Products Evolve

Over the ensuing decades, P&H earth moving machines evolved into larger, more powerful and more productive prime movers of material. By 1930, welding technology made possible the fabrication of lighter, stronger machinery versus traditional riveted-design machinery. P&H not only was an early adapter to welded design, but the firm also designed and manufactured its own line of electric arc welding machinery and welding rod products. Another technology advance applied to P&H digging machines during the 1930s was the Ward-Leonard DC electric motor drive system. Pawling & Harnischfeger began designing and making their own electric motors and controls starting in 1893 when they acquired assets of the Gibb Electric Company that were not needed when Gibb was purchased by Westinghouse Electric Manufacturing Company.

P&H shovels and draglines were originally available with prime-mover options including a Waukesha gasoline engine, a Buda diesel engine, or a P&H electric motor. By the 1930s, diesel engines and P&H electric motors became the dominant prime mover options on P&H digging machines. By the end of the 1960s, virtually all P&H excavating machines would be equipped with P&H electric motors.

P&H excavators that started out in the 1920s with dipper and bucket payloads of about 500 pounds / 226 kilograms and dipper and bucket capacities of 0.5 cubic yard / 0.382 cubic meter would evolve into massive and powerful electric mining shovels with maximum dipper payloads of 120 tons / 109 tonnes and maximum capacities of 82 cubic yards / 62.7 cubic meters. Machine working weights would see similar dramatic changes. P&H Model 206 excavators originally had working weights of about 25 tons / 22.7 tonnes. P&H 4100XPC electric shovels today have working weights of about 1,645 tons / 1492 tonnes.

Despite their massive size and significant power and payload capacity, modern-era P&H machines are easy to operate using soft-touch joystick controllers and computer-assisted drives.

P&H Product Line

A P&H MK 2800 II at Collie, Western Australia.

P&H Mining Equipment designs and builds four lines of equipment for surface mining operations. They include electric mining shovels, blast hole production drills, walking draglines, and in-pit crushing-conveying systems.

P&H Electric Mining Shovels

P&H Electric Mining Shovels are applied to loading haul trucks and in-pit crusher-conveyor systems in surface mine operations. They range in payload from 21 tons / 19.1 tonnes for the smallest model, the P&H 1900AL, to 120 tons / 108.9 tonnes for the largest model, the P&H 4100XPC.

P&H Drilling Rigs

P&H Drilling Rigs are applied to boring grids of tubular explosives containers in hard-rock formations within mine operations. They apply three kinds of force to the task of advancing a tri-cone drill bit into rock. Bit-loading force up to 150,000 pounds-force (670,000 N) combines with up to 25,000-foot-pound-force (34,000 N·m) of torque and large volumes of compressed air flowing at nearly 3,850 cubic feet (109 m³) per minute create the tubes or "blast holes." The holes are loaded with explosives and then detonated. The blast produces a powerful shock wave that fragments the rock, making it easier to load, haul, crush and distill for its mineral contents.

P&H Walking Draglines

P&H Walking Draglines move large volumes of earthen overburden capping coal seams, and also overburden and phosphates. They wield a large-volume bucket that is cast out toward the material that needs to be relocated using a football field-length boom and powerful swing motors and transmissions. The bucket lands atop the material and its teeth quickly bite into the material. Powerful drag force is applied to fill the bucket, followed by powerful hoist and swing forces applied to dump the material away from the excavation site. P&H dragline bucket capacities range from 55 to 160 cubic yards (42 to 120 m³).

P&H In-pit Crushing-Conveying Systems

P&H In-pit Crushing-Conveying Systems are the newest addition to the P&H Mining Equipment product line. Introduced in 2008, IPCCs take earthen material excavated and deposited into a large holding hopper by a P&H electric shovel, and then crush the material to an easy-to-convey size for transfer elsewhere in the mine. Soaring and volatile mine material handling costs associated with older mine operations utilizing longer and deeper truck haulage routes experienced during an inflationary period between 2004 and 2008 led to efforts by several mining equipment suppliers to develop alternative IPCC systems. The P&H IPCC system is designed for synchronous engagement with a P&H 4100-class shovel with drives and controls that can optimize and coordinate preventive maintenance for minimized system downtime in the cost-sensitive mining industry.

Product Distribution and Support

To help optimize the reliability and productivity of its machinery, P&H Mining Equipment operates a global network of P&H MinePro Services support teams in key mining regions. Formally established in 1996, the MinePro network carries on the commitment to service support established by Alonzo Pawling and Henry Harnischfeger back in 1884.

MinePro operations are located in Africa, Asia, Australia, Europe, North America and South America close to major concentrations of mining operations that produce energy and minerals for the global economy. P&H equipment and MinePro support are primarily directed to copper, coal, iron ore, oil sand, gold, diamonds and phosphate mining operations in order of product and service demand. MinePro service support includes new machine assembly, maintenance and repairs, systems upgrades, machine relocations, motors and transmissions rebuilds and repairs, structures weldments and repairs, and training for machine operators and maintenance personnel.

MinePro teams consist of mechanics, electricians, welders, machinists, assemblers and logistics warehouse managers, most of them native to the city or region in which they serve. Because their operations are situated within major mining regions, MinePro personnel are in virtual daily contact and service support to the mining operations that operate 24 hours a day, 365 days per year.

Mines are highly capital-intensive operations laid out upon vast production landscapes. To obtain optimal cost-per-ton efficiencies, mine operations strive for continuous material process flows that result in uniform-quality outputs of copper, coal, iron ore, petroleum, gold, diamonds, phosphates and other products. They require equipment that is reliable and productive, and support that helps optimize that performance. Hence the P&H Mining Equipment investment in its global network of P&H MinePro Service teams that helps support mining operations toward that objective.

External links

• P&H MinePro Services: P&H MinePro Services web site
• Joy.com: Joy Mining Machinery - Sister company website
• Joy Global Inc.: Joy Global Inc. website
• National Mining Association
• Hoovers.com – P&H Mining Equipment Inc.

References

1. ^ Wisconsin Historical Society, retrieved on 2010-05-24.