The areas of impact when employing high productivity long wall systems are reviewed and the financial implications of the most significant areas highlighted. A distinction has been made between availability and utilization. The need for more efficient delay recording, together with increasing control and utilization of the systems has been identified and the measurability of the latter discussed._x000D_
The increased use of electronic delay reporting direct from the operating unit as the basis for operational control and a pre-emptive maintenance philosophy is seen as an important area of achieving higher performances from existing long wall production systems and Configurations.