What a crushing plant quote actually needs

Most crushing quotes arrive as a number with no conditions attached, and that number is close to meaningless. A plant rated at 400 t/h on one rock is not a 400 t/h plant on another. Before any figure is worth comparing, five things have to be on the table.

1. The rock, as a sample

Not “granite” and not “hard”. A 200 kg sample, taken across the face rather than from one convenient pile, gives a particle-size distribution. UCS gives the strength. Abrasion index gives how fast the steel will disappear. Without these, the throughput is a guess dressed up as a specification.

2. The product, as cut points

“Aggregate” is not a product. 0/4, 4/20 and 20/40 mm are products, and each one sets a cut point, which sets a circulating load, which sets the size of the cone. A quote that does not name the cut points is quoting a different plant.

3. The setting

Open pit, decline or quarry bench. Underground, 4.2 m of clear height changes the frame design, the assembly sequence and the lead time. It is not a detail to be sorted out later.

4. The boundary

Who builds the foundations, who runs the cable, who supplies water. A quote without a scope boundary is a quote that will be argued about at month nine.

5. The date

First set and repeat steelwork are different numbers. Sixteen weeks for the first, ten for a repeat, because the second time the steelwork is already on a drawing number.

Send those five and a first mass balance comes back in fifteen working days. Send none of them and the honest answer is a range wide enough to be useless.