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RPMGlobal futureproofs inventory management for miners

Equipment maintenance, IoT, Mining consumables, Mining mergers and acquisitions, Mining software, , , , , ,

RPMGlobal has completed the acquisition of IMAFS, adding a cloud delivered, inventory management and forecasting software solution to a suite of technology solutions that use proprietary artificial intelligence algorithms to greatly improve inventory management.

IMAFS analyses inventory data from corporate Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) systems to deduce the optimal timeframe for inventory orders, costs, and order frequency. It supports not only several forecasting methods, but also takes advantage of AI and machine-learning capabilities to optimise the calculation of the key variables in inventory management, RPMGlobal says.

The ‘forward looking’ predictive algorithms become particularly powerful when used in conjunction with RPMGlobal’s asset management system, AMT, the company added. AMT uses a Dynamic Life Cycle Costing engine that forecasts, in real time, every maintenance event for a piece of equipment, at a component level, until the end of its economic life.

The future demand of an organisation’s assets, combined with the optimisation algorithms within IMAFS, are the critical pieces of the puzzle to optimise procurement and management of critical parts and components, according to RPMGlobal.

“The delivery of an integrated AMT and IMAFS offering delivers an industry-first, predictive solution with more certainty of the future and less reliance on historical data,” it said.

ERP systems typically use historical consumption to predict future requirements, which, according to RPMGlobal, has its limitations in a volatile maintenance and repair focused industry such as mining.

“This future demand knowledge will further improve the accuracy of parts availability, reducing inventories, decreasing stockouts and reducing equipment downtimes,” it said.

IMAFS has been proven in industry, according to RPMGlobal, with one operation reducing 78% of stockouts for items with high usage, while concurrently reducing stock levels by 14% for the items controlled by IMAFS. Another operation was able to reduce global inventory by 15% within the first 10 months without any diminution of service levels.

RPMGlobal Chief Executive Officer, Richard Mathews, said: “The company is leading the way in the practical application of innovative technology that increased miners’ operational competitiveness. With our growing suite of optimisation products, RPMGlobal has built a capacity to help global operations extract more value where it counts. We are excited to be utilising AI technologies to improve the efficiency of mining operations across the asset management function.”

He added: “We intend to build on this AI capability by including additional variables in the models that may impact availability for our customers operating in remote locations. This experience will also assist us as we look to use these same advanced techniques to further optimise mine planning and scheduling.”

RPMGlobal adds predictive element to mine maintenance solutions with IMAFS buy

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RPMGlobal has entered into a share purchase agreement to acquire Canada-headquartered, inventory optimisation management software company, IMAFS.

As a Software-as-a-Service and cloud-delivered provider of inventory optimisation software, IMAFS has more than 20 years experience developing and selling its flagship IMAFS product, RPMGlobal says.

The IMAFS solution is an inventory management and forecasting software solution that connects to an organisation’s Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) system and uses proprietary artificial intelligence (AI) algorithms to greatly improve inventory management, according to the company. The product has been designed and built for the sole purpose of optimising the inventory holdings of large asset-intensive companies.

RPM CEO and Managing Director, Richard Mathews (left, pictured with David Batkin, Executive General Manager – Technology Consulting), said: “We are very pleased to have concluded negotiations to acquire IMAFS and are really looking forward to welcoming the Quebec-based IMAFS team into the wider RPM family. The product is a great fit with the existing RPM product suite and further builds on our cloud and optimisation offerings.”

RPM explained: “In the mining industry, management and optimisation, specifically the maintenance, repair and operational (MRO) inventory is critical to ensuring operational continuity and attainment of production targets.

“The key to accurately forecasting any type of inventory is understanding future demand. Mining MRO inventory optimisation is often a unique challenge to solve due to low volume and/or erratic turnover with long lead times, high component costs and the complex logistics associated with operating in remote locations leading to companies over-stocking parts inventory and tying up capital unnecessarily.”

When it comes to mining, properly managing MRO inventory is vital, RPM says. If the plant, or key pieces of equipment (loaders, trucks, conveyors, etc) stop operating because spare parts are not available, a costly operational problem develops. A poor inventory optimisation process can result in a company ordering inventory urgently due to reactive inventory processes rather than predictive inventory processes.

IMAFS has developed a hosted subscription service that, RPM says, allows inventory data to be extracted from a company’s ERP product or Computer Maintenance Management system and analysed programmatically.

IMAFS’ proprietary and cutting-edge algorithms also include AI logic incorporating parameters such as transport mode, carrier, weather, customs, seasonality, holidays, availability, and many other data points. IMAFS will also identify excess or obsolete stock that can be returned or disposed of, according to RPM.

Mathews added: “Four years ago, we acquired iSolutions because we understood the importance of planning maintenance in parallel with production. AMT stands alone when it comes to forecasting the lifecycle cost of an asset using its dynamic lifecycle costing engine. This real-time engine accurately predicts when customers will require major parts and components.

“In other words, by going back to first principles (as AMT does), we can predict the future demand that can be factored into IMAFS’ advanced AI algorithms. That future demand is the critical piece of the puzzle so that IMAFS can optimise procurement and management of critical parts and components.”

Mathews says the AMT solution is used by the major OEM’s and their dealer network. These organisations can take forecasts from their customers into the IMAFS product, thereby assisting them in optimising their spare parts inventory.

“While we haven’t had a product to do this in the past, we have been involved in a number of discussions with dealers and miners to do exactly this,” he said.

Robert Lamarre, IMAFS Founder, said: “It is immensely pleasing to see the passion emanating from the team at RPM to championing inventory optimisation and cloud-driven enterprise integration. We are convinced that the IMAFS product suite will benefit from increased investment and the sales and marketing support that RPM can offer these products right around the world.”

Following completion, Lamarre will continue his involvement with promoting IMAFS through a third-party business partner authorised to market and distribute IMAFS products to customers in North America outside of mining and resources.

The acquisition is expected to close on November 25, 2020 subject to several conditions precedent and customary completion events.

RPMGlobal offers ‘real-time, zero-based maintenance budgeting’ with AMT upgrade

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RPMGlobal has unveiled major functionality upgrades in the latest release of its dedicated asset lifecycle costing software – AMT, designed to, it says, accelerate the maintenance budget generation process for miners.

In the release of AMT 8.21, improved maintenance budgeting integration is a key focus, with upgrades drastically improving the speed of the budgeting and forecasting process.

“AMT is already one of the only products on the market that is purpose-built for maintenance cost budgeting that works seamlessly with any miner’s ERP, and this functionality upgrade will further reduce the time it takes teams to produce maintenance budgets,” the company said.

The ability to conduct real-time, zero-based maintenance budgeting instead of relying on static maintenance plans helps operations gauge the true costs of operating equipment, according to the company.

RPMGlobal Chief Technology Officer, Paul Beesley, said innovative technologies such as AMT formed the foundation for smarter asset management decision making.

“As the leading maintenance cost budgeting solution specifically designed for the mining industry, this release has been about taking our clients’ feedback and advancing the maintenance cost budgeting component of AMT’s functionality,” he said.

“With many of our global customers in budget planning mode, this release comes at a great time for operations seeking to speed up analysis of different budget and forecasting options, which leads to improved accuracy and decision making.”

While the focus on this release is centred on upgrading the maintenance budgeting integration process, AMT 8.21 also includes several usability enhancements that improve the experience of the Asset Manager, according to the company.

Some of the notable enhancements include Dynamic Life Cycle Costing engine performance improvements, depreciation forecasting, standard job versions that supports baselining changes made to maintenance strategies, new and redesigned reports, and other functionality enhancements.

AMT is used by hundreds of mine sites worldwide as well as all major OEMs to manage their assets and asset maintenance contracts, according to the company. “With AMT, operators have a holistic life cycle cost view of their asset base to deliver proactive asset management capability,” it said.

At the core of RPMGlobal’s powerful asset management solution is a unique Dynamic Life Cycle Costing engine which enables organisations to be proactive about asset management. As a result, miners have the ability to control and curtail maintenance costs, identify asset life cycle risks and opportunities, and reduce unplanned downtime.

RPMGlobal Chief Executive Officer, Richard Mathews, said: “RPMGlobal’s investment commitment in the industry’s leading asset management solution would continue apace, with additional exciting releases planned over the next 12 months.

“AMT is a major part of our business, and with every release, more enterprise functionality and integration is added.

“We anticipate mining companies will remain focused on keeping their operational costs as low as possible as they seek to unlock greater value from operations. AMT is the proven solution that enables our customers to identify asset lifecycle risks and opportunities to control and reduce maintenance spend which is vital in this current environment.”

RPMGlobal provides asset management add-on for SAP users

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RPMGlobal has launched a new version of its dedicated asset lifecycle costing software, AMT, designed to complement SAP’s Intelligent Asset Management offering and solve the plant and maintenance needs of miners.

In this release of AMT, AMT4SAP will be equipped with over 20 logical business connectors into SAP to support any organisations’ SAP work management solution, RPMGlobal said.

AMT4SAP is an add-on to a miner’s existing SAP solution (pictured) designed to complement and enhance asset management decision support through advanced modelling, maintenance cost budgeting, lifecycle management, benchmarking, component life optimisation and overall strategy optimisation, according to the company.

RPMGlobal and SAP have had a partnership agreement in place since 2013 and have already successfully deployed AMT with SAP to many global mining organisations, RPMGlobal says. These deployments include integration between the solutions that automate the transfer of data to amplify the decision-making capabilities of these organisations.

RPMGlobal CEO, Richard Mathews, said AMT4SAP provides a “complementary and connected solution” to SAP’s maintenance planning (PM), reliability analysis and optimisation functions.

“Miners have complex plant and maintenance needs that AMT4SAP can solve through the creation of a truly holistic approach to asset management. The outcome is long-term performance and cost benefits that positively impact the bottom line,” he said.

At the core of RPMGlobal’s AMT solution is a Dynamic Life Cycle Costing (DLCC) engine and inbuilt intelligence engine. The DLCC takes inputs in real-time from various asset management processes and systems such as on-board monitoring systems, fleet management systems, the mine plan and SAP itself.

The calculation engine then automatically reforecasts future usage, availability, productivity, further maintenance costs and future resource requirements, according to RPMGlobal. It does this for every piece of equipment, every part and component for the entire life of each asset in real-time.

Harnessing the DLCC engine, AMT4SAP is able to identify asset lifecycle risks and opportunities to control and reduce maintenance spend, arming end-users with the ability to proactively make decisions.

AMT’s ability to define, track and maintain an asset’s lifecycle cost through the DLCC complements SAP’s work management capabilities across work scheduling, strategy definition, resource levelling, downtime capturing and warranty management.

“The differentiating strength of RPMGlobal’s AMT solution is the ability to rapidly generate and analyse multiple maintenance scenarios and strategies to determine the optimal solutions available to a mining operation,” the company said.

Through modelling multiple scenarios for evaluation of new assets (advanced modelling) and alternate maintenance strategies for assets already in operation (strategy optimisation); optimal long-term plans that impact on costs, availability and resources can be better understood and shared with stakeholders well in advance (long-term planning), it added.

A good example of the two systems complementary functions is AMT’s unique MCB (Maintenance Cost Budgeting) module, RPMGlobal said. Integrating AMT’s live lifecycle costing – which includes factoring in unplanned events not covered in SAP – together with SAP’s work order and master data, AMT4SAP is able to generate a full zero-based maintenance budget in “minutes instead of weeks”, it said.

AMT4SAP assists to ensure all data is structured and ready for analytics solutions, such as SAP Analytics Cloud. “This means users spend less time creating a budget and more time using the analytical tools to better understand the maintenance business and deliver real value,” the company said.

AMT, RPMGlobal says, is used by hundreds of mine sites worldwide as well as all major OEMs to manage their assets and contracts.

RPMGlobal goes mobile with latest release of AMT asset management software

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RPMGlobal has focused on mobility for the latest release of its fast-growing asset management solution, AMT.

In this release of AMT – version 8.16 – RPM has streamlined the inspection work process in the AMT mobile app making it far easier to manage in the field. With a mobile device, users can access, edit and close work orders while working remotely.

Work can be created automatically from strategy tasks within AMT or an integrated ERP. This process becomes a seamless execution of inspection and checklist work for the mobile user, according to RPM, improving the useability and productivity with an easy and practical process for the user.

Since AMT’s acquisition by RPMGlobal in 2016, the solution has been deployed on every continent other than Antarctica, according to the company.

Michael Baldwin, Executive General Manager of Product Strategy for RPM, said “Mobility is critical to ensuring that information is in the hands of the right people as it is needed. One thing we have found in recent years is that giving people information with context amplifies their decision-making capabilities and there is no better way than to have it in their hands in the field when they need it.”

AMT has the Dynamic Life Cycle Costing engine, and inbuilt intelligence that no other system contains, RPM says. The mobile app is completely integrated into this engine.

“This means that reliability and life cycle costing are linked, enabling users to not just identify, or predict, maintenance issues, but understand their impact and accurately model the correct resolution.”

Baldwin added: “Our aim with AMT mobile is to ensure that the end users have an easy way to perform their job. Their focus should be on completing the task at hand, not working out how they will enter it into a system at some point in the future.”

There are also several improvements and enhancements to usability and budgeting in AMT 8.16, in addition to support for SQL Server 2016 platform.

“Through RPMGlobal’s online support portal and forums, users are continuously providing feedback that can improve the product and features they would like added. With each release of software these key features are developed and then ready to use as software is upgraded,” the company said.

Baldwin said AMT formed a critical part of the company’s business and with every release more and more integration throughout the suite was added.

AMT 8.16 also provides tighter integration to products like MinVu, which is capturing real time data from operational systems such as FMS and health systems in the field.

“Information like machine hours and health sensor information is critical to an asset management system, and that is completely automated within the RPM offering,” the company said.

Baldwin concluded: “As mining moves towards a digital, and then intelligent world, automation of data capture, validation and transfer is crucial. Once that part is automated, your people can focus on what they need to do to improve rather than entering and manipulating data between systems.”