Glencore Technology have transformed their popular IsaMill™ licensees’ free maintenance program to a mobile app that allows operations to optimise each mill’s performance and maintenance, achieving gains in life of asset, availability and reducing operating costs. The IMIS App, exclusively for IsaMill customers, allows operators to manage maintenance, work tasks and mill availability, plus gain analysis and benchmark performance comparisons.
The IsaMill Maintenance Information System works on most mobile devices including phone or tablet. But what began as simple maintenance inspection has grown into a valuable tool for mill optimisation. Manager for Aftermarket and Support, Tim Shea, said the app has the capacity to improve mill performance significantly, and in a short time. “The IMIS app is incredibly powerful. It is several tools in one. And from a great deal of data and comparisons, perhaps the biggest gain is that an operation can quickly work to reduce maintenance, increase availability and extend the life of their mill.”
Shea said that because the system aggregates data from other mills around the world but without revealing any identification, it also provides a valuable and rare benchmarking opportunity. “What we’re chasing for every mill customer is the chance to draw on the breadth of IsaMill installations around the world, so they can improve the performance of their own mill. They can even predict factors, like how long components will last on their own site. At the same time, they can learn from the community of IsaMill operators. I don’t know of any other mill technology prepared to draw real world data and provide so much to their operations.”
As a maintenance management app, an operation can get the wear rates on components of their mill, the expected life remaining for each part, what spare parts are being used during inspections, when expected works are required and information about uptime and downtime.
As a performance improvement app, an operation can pose ‘what if’ scenarios, track cumulative consumption, analyse performance over time, track the entire life of the mill and store photographs of key parts and events. The IMIS system is available to all IsaMill licensees at no cost.
