Vanguard Commits To Upliftment In Africa

Vanguard has become the first company in South Africa to invest in four strand jacks, and engineer, design and manufacture a light-weight gantry, to complete a practical heavy lifting system, which can be packed and transported with ease. Vanguard is now in a position to offer accurate and sophisticated heavy lifting services in the remotest parts of Africa, where the use of a high capacity crane, would otherwise be cost prohibitive, cumbersome and complex.

This level of investment and foresight from a relatively small company, has already garnered interest, and Vanguard recently secured a bid from a new client - Randgold - to install two 110 tonne ball mills at their mining operation in Mali. The strand jacks - which were imported from Hydrospex in Holland - offer high capacity lifting within a relatively small area. Compact, easy to pack and install, the four units purchased by Vanguard are immensely powerful and have a 70 tonne capacity each. In addition, because they employ steel cable pulling system, they are capable of achieving 'limitless' heights. On this particular project, the strand jacks cleared over 60 meters. 'In the past, we would have had to have employed the use of a bulky 1000 tonne capacity crane. Considering the effort that would be required to transport such equipment to remote locations, the advantage of having invested the jacks is evident,' explains Bryan Hodgkinson, Vanguard’s Managing Director.

However, Vanguard’s commitment did not end there. In order to complete the system, the company designed, engineered and constructed a 'light weight' gantry, which can be easily dismantled for transportation purposes, and effortlessly reconstructed on site as required. The time, costs and manpower savings realised on this project – thanks to the use this system –were significant.

The system is supported by four 50 tonne capacity self propelled rollers - also imported by Vanguard - and is precisely controlled and synchronised through a laptop at ground level, via plc. 'The accuracy of control achieved is remarkably within a deviation of just 1mm. In addition, the software employed has been specially developed and successfully proven in heavy lifting operations throughout the world,' states Hodgkinson.

As well as conducting the ball mill installation, Vanguard organised all the paperwork required to guarantee that the equipment arrived on site, in time. It took only 2 engineers and 2 assistants from Vanguard to ensure that both mills were installed and safely positioned on their bearing pedestals, within just 24 hours. The mills, which are used to crush rock for processing, are the main items of equipment in the gold processing plant. After they were securely positioned, the mine was ready for the final construction lap before commissioning and the commencement of gold production.

'The successful completion of this project augers well for Vanguard, and we have no doubt that other clients throughout Africa will also benefit from the system. In fact, we are already well into discussions, with a customer in Zambia, who has expressed an interest in contracting Vanguard, based on a proposal which incorporates this option. We are now more confident than ever before, in our ability to professionally and cost-effectively handle projects throughout the continent, anytime, anywhere,' Hodgkinson concludes.