A more than three-month trial of GHH’s inSiTE digital analytics solution on a 14-t-payload LF-14 LHD has convinced potash and salt miner, K+S, to complete a rollout of the platform across multiple mine sites.
GHH inSiTE, powered by talpasolutions, can distil complicated and seemingly random information into powerful tools for analysis, according to GHH, with the manufacturer promising the integration into daily operations leads to continuously improved productivity.
In one of the first applications of GHH inSiTE in an operation in the CIS region, the customer achieved decreased downtime, increased utilisation, a 7% reduction in fuel consumption, the identification of inefficiencies in cycle time, and a 12% boost in overall equipment efficiency, according to the company.
K+S was looking to put the promises of GHH to the test and initially agreed on a technical pilot.
This technical pilot and the promising opportunities regarding data analysis and visualisation must have been convincing because, in July, K+S signed up for a commercial deployment of GHH inSiTE. This will see GHH inSiTE used on 150 machines across its mine sites.
Andreas Walczyk, Program Manager, Digital Transformation, at K+S, told attendees of The 2nd International Conference on High-Performance Mining that the trial was a chance for the company to not only gather machine data, but also leverage it to make improvements to its maintenance, production and training processes.
“The main reason for this pilot was to figure out if we were on the right path regarding data logging, network, WLAN and more,” he said. “The answer is yes; the pilot was and is very successful because all of our expectations were met.”
The company came away with around 3,500 operating hours and 27 GB of data to play with and analyse.
It acquired this by connecting to the on-board CAN BUS and engine control systems on the LF-14, logging the machine data over that three-month period, creating a “data buffer” at each site, displaying said data on customisable dashboards, and connecting it all through a cloud-based WLAN system.
K+S has already started the rollout of GHH inSiTE across its operations, with Walczyk keen to see how the machine-to-machine connection can allow loaders to, for example, pick up data from scalers to further improve the operations’ data analytics.
Dr Jan Petzold, GHH Group CEO, says the GHH inSiTE system does not discriminate between mobile or fixed machinery, with operators and supervisors able to customise their dashboards to monitor the data and key performance indicators most important to them.
“Owning data is not good enough, you need to know what to do with the data,” he said. “There is now a tool available to help you improve your maintenance intervals, your mean times between failures, and you have the chance to store this data for review afterwards. We also enable our customers to integrate the data in existing workflows to take better actions based on actionable insights.”
Following the rollout of GHH inSiTE across the 150 machines at multiple operating sites, Walczyk says K+S will then look to integrate the solution into its SAP system.
Also included on the K+S roadmap is a plan to leverage GHH inSiTE for a move into the predictive maintenance arena at its sites, using the platform for spare parts and resource inventory management, performance benchmarking and innovations for targeted product development.