Flexco’s Australian-made pulley lagging allows the company agility in responding to the needs of its customers in the mining industry.
In today’s truly global market, it’s never been easier to be choosy about the products we purchase.
And in that market there’s undeniably a certain appeal to inexpensive, cookie-cutter products churned out of mass-producing economies.
But what good is, say, a cheap pair of pants if they don’t fit, or if they bust a stitch when you bend over?
Expedience has a way of stacking up – but it’s quality that really lasts.
This is all the more the case for the machine components at work in the mining industry, where much more is at stake than just embarrassment caused by a pair a dodgy pants.
Poor or ill-fitting components require constant maintenance, which in turn disrupts operations and can lead to costly downtime.
When these troublesome parts inevitably give up the ghost, they’ll need replacing. That squeezes yet more time and money from a company, which would have been better off buying something decent in the first place.
The mining sector needs quality, tailored products to keep the gigantic wheels of industry turning.
And that’s exactly what Flexco has been providing to its customers for almost four decades with its line of pulley lagging.
Lagging is the layer of material bonded to the shell of a conveyor pulley which serves to protect the conveyor system and increase friction to drive the belt. Lagging comes in various embodiments, each with different capabilities and strengths – but not all of them are created equal.
Flexco has been manufacturing lagging in Sydney for the entire Flexco group across the globe since 1985, making it the oldest such manufacturer in Australia. The company has learned a few things in that time, not least the value of providing a high-quality, tailored product to customers in the mining industry.
“What differentiates us from our competition is that we’re flexible,” Flexco lagging specialist Phil Dreghorn told Australian Mining.
“We can manufacture lagging in different thicknesses from 10 to 30mm. We offer ceramic dimple and smooth, and rubber lagging, and we can put more or less ceramic tiles in the lagging to change the friction factors.
“Whether it’s continuous lengths of lagging strips to minimise wastage or making specific lengths and thicknesses of lagging, we’re able to adapt to a customer’s requirements and do it quickly.”
Flexco offers four different lagging application methods: cold bonding, CN lining, hot vulcanising, and weld-on. The bonding depends on budget and the toughness of the conveyor’s job.
“In terms of the lagging itself, the ratio of ceramic to rubber depends on what coefficient of friction is required to drive the conveyor belt,” Dreghorn said.
“The ceramic laggings have the longest life. We’ve got one that’s been running at BHP’s Nelson Point operations since 2001 – that’s over 22 years of operation. As for the cheaper rubber option, you’ll typically get around 10 years of use from them.”
The company produces 76km of rubber and ceramic lagging every year, the approximate distance between Brisbane and the Gold Coast. Flexco can have custom pulley lagging shipped within 2–3 weeks.
Key to Flexco’s quick turnaround on customised lagging is that its manufactured here in Australia.
“Manufacturing locally gives us that agility to react to customer needs quickly,” Flexco Sydney plant manager Phil Brodbeck said. “We can manufacture specifically for the customer’s pulley sizes and custom-make the lagging.
“We source the rubber locally and extrude it on-site. We’ve got five moulding presses here which gives up significant production capacity.”
Nationally, Flexco processes 210 tonnes of rubber every year, roughly the weight of five Boeing 737s.
Australian-made means Australian-operated, and Brodbeck said one of the best parts of keeping manufacturing onshore is creating local jobs. The lagging department in Sydney alone employs 13 people, including a full-time quality assurance employee.
Flexco lagging is regularly tested for tensile strength, elongation, abrasion resistance and bonding strength to ensure product consistency. The company also tests the chemical composition of its ceramic tiles to ensure maximum bonding strength and wear resistance.
Another benefit of staying local is operational oversight, allowing for greater transparency.
“We can supply all the traceability data, information like where the raw materials come from, when they were made, the use-by date, when we made the lagging, who made the lagging, who tested the lagging, who did the quality assurance checks on the lagging, and so on,” Dreghorn said.
“Traceability is a big one for end-users. They want to know where their products are coming from, they want quality assurance, and they often won’t buy without it.
“We supply all of that with our lagging.”
And with locations on both sides of the country, plus salespeople in most states, there’s back-up if anything goes wrong – which it rarely will, because Flexco pours time and resources into the research and development of its lagging products.
In addition, Flexco provides training to its customers when it comes to proper pulley lagging application. After all, you don’t stay in the game for almost four decades by being complacent.
The company has an in-house lagging design expert to test the friction coefficient of its different lagging applications. In other words, Flexco can calculate the best thickness, tile coverage, composition, bonding application for the job.
It’s this kind of effort that makes Flexco’s lagging advice amount to more than just “trust me” – there’s proven science behind it.
Almost four decades in the Australian lagging manufacturing space has given Flexco an arsenal of tools. It knows what its customers need, and through its high-quality, custom products with a quick turn-around in supply, the company has the agility to deliver.
This feature appeared in the May 2023 issue of Australian Mining.