As International Mining‘s June issue goes to print, with a surface drilling feature included, news comes from Sandvik, which is making available a new advanced version of its SanRemo productivity service for remote monitoring. The service, accessible on the web and currently available for the company’s surface top hammer drills, provides big savings in time, money and trouble, offering easy access to accurate real-time site data. This means a significant decrease in the number of required site visits and costly unexpected production stops.
Based on the production, performance and maintenance status reports supplied by the system, users can quickly detect any changes in efficiency and machine utilisation, to accurately measure and forecast projects, and to make precise maintenance schedules without leaving the office. This, of course, translates into improvements in the excavation rate. Sandvik says “calculations show that SanRemo increases production time by half an hour per shift. This translates into 66,000 t more excavated rock annually.”
The SanRemo service is available in three levels: Silver, Gold and Platinum (to be released this autumn). The service supplies different types of production and performance reports based on the chosen level and parameters. The parameters available are, for example, drilled metres, number of holes, average hole depth, engine hours, rock drill percussion hours, level of usage, average penetration rate and fuel consumption. SanRemo also offers reports for
maintenance management based on equipment usage: it shows the estimated date for the next maintenance event and the time left to it. Thus, maintenance can be scheduled precisely and the needed parts ordered well ahead. Furthermore, the service can offer full equipment service history.
The SanRemo service includes a GPS-based tracking function, which shows the exact site location, greatly helping optimise transportation routes for the machine as well as the field service personnel. Its modern and simple user interface is designed for every day use. The views and reports can be easily customised to fit the needs of different users, or user groups with varying interests. SanRemo also offers the opportunity to export all the reports as PDF or Excel.
The SanRemo hardware includes a data collection module and a GPS receiver installed on the rig. It is available as an option for the new rigs and as a retrofit kit for the older models. The system applies GSM and GPRS technologies in communication between the rig and the SanRemo server.