CASE STUDY | 
Nyrstar Dust Controlled Port Hopper 

Page Macrae Engineering (PME) is a heavy engineering company based in Mount Maunganui, Tauranga. PME specialise in the design and manufacture of innovative port equipment, with core products such as port hoppers, grabs, log lifters, container spreaders and multi-lifters. They also provide engineering capability across a range of business sectors, including power generation, petrochemical, pulp and paper and water treatment.

THE CHALLENGE

PME approached Caliber Design to carry out design of a dust controlled port hopper for Nyrstar NV. PME were facing a compressed schedule in order to meet their contractual delivery dates and were short on resource to commit to the project. There was a need for external resource that could handle both the project engineering and design aspects of the hopper, and minimise the overhead on PME’s busy design team. The project scope was the detailed mechanical design of all elements of the hopper, and coordination with subcontractors to deliver electrical design, hydraulic design, hazard assessment and certification.

THE SOLUTION

Caliber provided a Project Engineer to lead the design of the hopper, manage the Caliber team and coordinate with other subcontractors. Working predominantly offsite and autonomously, the project saw at its peak nine Caliber engineers engaged in various aspects of the design—which included the structure, receiving bin, grizzly chute, truck bin seal, filling system, dust suppression system and accessways. CAD, FEA and hand calculations were conducted by the Caliber team; with mechanical engineering management, reviews, budget/timeline tracking and reporting being handled by the Caliber Project Engineer. PME’s expertise in hopper design was incorporated through regular design reviews, and Caliber worked alongside NZ Controls, Eaton, Resilient Structure and other subcontractors to deliver the full scope of the project.

The majority of the Caliber team worked remotely for the duration of the project, demonstrating resilience throughout various stages of New Zealand’s Covid-19 response. Communication was supported through the use of Microsoft Teams and project management software, with regular discussions and weekly reporting keeping PME updated throughout the course of the project.

Key results:

• PME were able to hand over execution of the project to Caliber, enabling them to meet a tight schedule with minimal internal overhead. This was effectively a rapid expansion in PME’s ability to resource the project, allowing them to keep their focus directed toward their many other critical projects.
• By offering project engineering capability as well as mechanical design, Caliber were able to take additional load of the PME design team. Tasks such as managing a group of design engineers, tracking project timeline and budget, working with certifying engineers and external contractors, running design reviews and risk identification & management were handled by the Caliber project engineer.
• The project was subject to an extremely tight schedule, which Caliber was able to respond to by scaling up and down resource as required to meet the project deadlines.
• Fast responses and support from the PME team and Resilient Structure were instrumental in enabling the deadlines to be met.
• A detailed cost estimate was provided prior to project kick-off, and regular reporting of estimated versus actual provided during project run-time.