A significant problem during the loading of ore is that teeth and adapters from the shovel bucket break-off during this operation. The problem arises when parts from the bucket unnoticed follow the ore into the crusher pit, where they cause jamming and damage to the crusher. Extraction of the jammed teeth and adapters causes considerable direct repair cost and expensive production downtime for the mine. During normal operation the shovel bucket is subjected to regular visual inspections to identify broken or missing teeth or adapters. However, the failure mechanism is normally fast and often occurs during loading, when the maximum thrust from the blasted rock is exerted on the bucket teeth. In this paper, a system for detecting the broken teeth and adapters, based on infrared images, has been presented. In case of wear, this teeth and adapter detection system activates and sends off an alarm as soon as the tooth or adapter breaks-off. The study reveals that it is possible to bring down the production costs and increase the profits of the mine by implementing this detection system for preventing teeth and adapters that have fallen off the shovel bucket from jamming the crusher. The detection system and preventive measures should be implemented hand in hand. The preventive measures help minimizing the number of times the teeth fall-off the shovel bucket, while the detection system prevents the teeth and adapters from jamming the crusher in the event of their breaking off from the shovel bucket.