A division of the Ural Mining and Metallurgical Company (UMMC), JSC Kuzbassrazrezugol (KRU), which specialises in the extraction of coal, is implementing at all of their branches the ZM OpenMine mining fleet management system from Zyfra, the Finnish-Russian supplier of digital solutions for mining and other heavy industries.
The ZM OpenMine system is already operating at the Bachatsky coal mine of UMMC. It manages over 200 vehicles, including 40 excavators and 120 dump trucks. In addition to basic functionality modules and control of various types of mining vehicles (excavators, dump trucks, drill rigs, bulldozers), the company also uses services for diagnostics, tire monitoring, ore quality control and railway transport.
It is expected that when using the ZM OpenMine system, the increase in transport load and decrease in downtime and savings in fuel and lubricants will make it possible for UMMC to save up to $2 million in 2021 at the Bachatsky open pit alone. By the end of 2021, the ZM OpenMine system will be launched at the coal mines of Krasnobrodsky, Kaltansky and Taldinsky, and by mid-2022 also at Kedrovsky and Mokhovsky. The total size of the project is over 1,100 equipment units. This will lead to an increase of overall savings to $9 million by the end of 2022.
“We are implementing digitalisation projects in accordance with UMMC’s digital strategy, which includes cost-effective initiatives focused on health, safety and environment. The implementation of automatic dispatching is the best example of such initiatives. The ZM OpenMine system helps to fully control the entire mining fleet. In particular, the system minimises the risk of hazardous situations in production, improves labor discipline, and also leads to resource savings: tires, fuel and lubricants, consumables,” commented Sergey Fedotov, head of the UMMC Digital Transformation Program.
In the next stages of digital transformation, UMMC intends to introduce digital twins with a full three-dimensional geological model of their open-pit coal mines for planning, design and monitoring of mining operations.
“The ZM OpenMine system has already proven itself on the market as a reliable tool for keeping the efficiency and safety of mining transport under control. We believe that our system will allow UMMC to strengthen its position as an industry leader in the region and achieve high efficiency and industrial safety indicators,” noted Pavel Rastopshin, Managing Director of Zyfra Group.
For the first six months of 2021, KRU’s enterprises produced 20.5 Mt of coal (including 3.2 Mt of coking grades), which is 5.6% less than the volume of the same period in 2020, but fully corresponds to the current plans of the company. The total volume of stripping in January-June 2021 amounted to 153.6 million cubic metres.
