Joy Mining Machinery are a leading Global Supplier of Underground Mining Systems and Services and they employ 4,500 persons worldwide. Their headquarters are in Warrendale, Pennsylvania in the United States.
PDu were initially approached by their UK design headquarters to re-design their existing Roof Support Control Interface (Roof Support System shown in image 07 in the above gallery). Joy was drawn to PDu due to our expertise in design for manufacture in plastics as well as the high standards displayed in our portfolio. The existing interface enclosure was a stainless steel fabrication and had presented several problems to Joy including the manufacturing costs and tolerance build ups which led to assembly difficulties and problems in the field. The commercial costs of downtime as a result of failures in the field are estimated at $1000 every minute so reliability of these products is a major issue. Not only is the environment extreme it is also safety critical so the resulting specification for this design was a major challenge. The unit has to seal to the IP67 rating as well as surviving rigorous environmental and drop testing. The end solution has not only satisfied the high level specification but it has offered Joy a solution with major commercial benefits, which saw the entire project capitol investment, recouped within minimal time.
The success of this initial project filtered over to the U.S and as a result we were selected by Joy USA to work on several top level NPD projects. We have now been engaged directly with the U.S team for over 3 years and this has resulted in our international business model. What we have developed is a system for international communication which efficiently uses or time and maximises the end results for our clients.
