Rep. Jim Matheson tours the Bucyrus plant in Huntington
| James Wells, manufacturing manager for Bucyrus explains the operation at the Huntington facility to Rep. Jim Matheson. |
Rep. Jim Matheson visited with constituents in Emery County during his Easter recess from Congress. He toured the Bucyrus mine repair in Huntington. James Wells, the manufacturing manager for the plant led Rep. Matheson through the plant and explained the operations performed there in mine machinery repair.
Wells explained the process involved in getting the coal out of the mountain. Matheson said he has been in a coal mine before and watched some of the machinery in action.
Wells showed Matheson a walker which is used to move the long wall from place to place. A ranging arm for a shearer was also at the shop being repaired. This rotating drum has bits which cut the coal and the crusher pulverizes the coal.
The Bucyrus company is 100 years old and recently merged the DBT operation into Bucyrus. When the coal mine repair first opened in Huntington it was called Long Airdox. The Bucyrus company has recently completed many new additions to the shop in Huntington. A new building was constructed adjacent to the existing building which now looks like one huge shop. A new office portion was added to the front of the building. The parking lot was paved. Bucyrus operates 24 hours a day during the week with weekends off. They are planning an open house in June to allow the surrounding communities to come and visit the facility and get a feel for what takes place at the plant.
Bucyrus takes a safety first approach with its employees and their tasks around the large machinery they repair. The plant in Huntington is a repair only facility and has 80 employees that come from the Emery and Carbon county area. Tim McCallun is the general manager over every plant in the West. Bucyrus has facilities throughout the country with satellite warehouses in Craig,Colo., Rock Springs, Wyo., Carlsbad, N.M., and Paonia, Colo. The main plant is in Houston, Penn. and manufacturing of mining equipment takes place there with manufacturing in Houston as well. It depends on the product line where the product is manufactured. All belt structures are manufactured at the Alabama facility. Equipment includes: shuttle cars, continuous miners, shearers, conveyor belts, scoops and coal haulers.
One part of the plant, Rep. Matheson seemed particularly impressed with was the storage recepticle for the parts needed in the repair of the machinery. A huge machine with trays inside are controlled by a computer which shows which parts are on each tray and the information for the part needed is put into the computer and the trays are rotated and the tray with the needed parts is brought forward like magic.
In order to save warehouse space the storage shelves reach far into the air and a fork lift brings the needed supplies down for the workers.
| Plant general manager, Tim McCallum is over the Western operation for Bucyrus; he speaks with Rep. Jim Matheson, Emery County Commissioner, Gary Kofford and Emery County Sheriff LaMar Guymon during the tour. |
Bucyrus’ customers are the global leaders in supplying coal, copper, iron ore, oil sands and other mined commodities to meet ever increasing demands.
The company has a long history and began creating surface mining equipment in 1880. Their underground mining roots stretch back to 1826.
Companies rely so much on their equipment and Bucyrus is there to see their equipment is repaired quickly and to the highest standards. They know that when equipment is down, precious time is being lost for production.
Surface mining equipment includes electric mining shovels, rotary blasthole drills and walking draglines.
Bucyrus is proud of their research department where they are always adding new technology to their products.
Bucyrus says their core business is to make your business a success story.