The Joy Smart Services Centre was officially opened and is the first facility in the world of its kind for Joy. The company says it “is set to take performance levels in underground coal mining operations to the next level.” Ted Doheny, President and COO of Joy Mining Machinery, who officially opened the centre, commented, “The Joy Smart Services Centre in eMalahleni, South Africa is a major milestone in Joy’s 90-year history of providing key innovations for the mining industry. Joy Smart Services will allow us to get critical operational data on our equipment and the mining operation back to our engineering design centres around the world so that we can enhance the performance of the entire mining system. Joy Smart Services will help us increase our service performance to the mines as we extend the equipment life and provide predictive tools so we have the right part and service available when needed.“We are excited to have our South African team taking the global leadership position for us as we expand this service to other markets around the world and take our industry leading service to the next level of performance.”
Joy South Africa’s Managing Director, Jason Savage said, “The global applications of our resources and expertise, coupled with Joy’s leading control system technology, have enabled us to reliably obtain ‘real-time’ data from underground and apply this information to improve the performance of equipment and processes.
“South Africa was selected as the first operation in the global group to deploy Joy Smart Services, as the coal mining industry is room and pillar orientated, and there is a strong drive to be the lowest cost producers of coal. Our committed engineering team, combined with the local mining environment, made South Africa the ideal site to launch Joy Smart Services. The South African operation will act as a blueprint for the roll out of Joy Smart Services across the world.
“Many South African mines are keen adopters of technology and have deployed it effectively to increase productivity against a background of other mining constraints. As a result, these South African coal mines are amongst the most productive and lowest cost room and pillar producers in the world.”
“Although our machines are amongst the highest producers in the world, there is still an opportunity to increase production. The deployment of Joy Smart Services in partnership with our customers will facilitate maximum underground to surface utilisation by extending cutting time and improving process availability”, added Savage.
The Joy Smart Service Centre combines all Joy’s services into one package under one roof as an integrated offering to customers. The centre features technological advancements in predictive maintenance, integration of mining processes/system optimization, remote machine health monitoring, condition monitoring, training and 24- hour support. At the hub of Joy’s Smart Services is the 24/7 monitoring centre, which provides real-time information and support on Life Cycle Management packages. The control room features a 6-m video wall, which displays information dashboards of various machines at different customer sites, as well as comprehensive underground machine and network status information.
“The launch”, concluded Savage, “marks the new beginning of an ongoing journey, and is core to our global strategy going forward. The Joy Smart Services Centre is the culmination of our vision in partnership with our customers in applying technology to improve safety, productivity and lower the cost of coal mined.”