Tag Archives: fleet management

MineWare integrates mining value chain with new Argus tool

Communications in mining, IoT, Mining equipment, Mining services, Mining software, , , , , , ,

MineWare has introduced an advanced Material Classification module for its Argus Shovel Monitor to, it says, enable mine sites to save millions of dollars by reducing the amount of lost or contaminated ore.

The module integrates precise material information from each bucket, per the mine plan, with any fleet management system to give machine operators, haul truck drivers and processing personnel more accurate knowledge and feedback on the type of material being loaded and hauled, it said.

MineWare Vice President of Strategy and Marketing, Roy Pater, said by knowing upfront what exactly is being loaded at the face, the Argus Material Classification Module improves what material is being moved through the value chain – from pit to plant.

“Argus sets up the entire workflow for better success, providing the right feedback to more people and processes downstream to make informed decisions,” he said. “Shovel operators can now see in real time, via an intuitive, colour-coded display screen, the type and grade of material being loaded, not just the quantity of material.

“Unlike traditional systems that just track material via machine position, Argus precisely monitors each bucket fill and position, classifying the material in real time via a block model overlay on the Argus screen. The operator knows exactly what they’re digging, and where. Argus removes subjectivity when interpreting boundaries and reduces the risk of grade contamination at the dig face.”

Pater said operators no longer need to change grade manually or make assumptions on what they are digging, with the improvement in classification of material upstream having a positive effect on operations downstream.

“Better classification of material in the pit leads to better production output by knowing exactly what’s going in the truck and where it needs to go,” he said.

Argus feeds this material information from the shovel through to the mine’s fleet management system in real time.

Pater said: “The driver then knows exactly where to take the material based on its type and concentration – whether that’s a stockpile, waste point or straight to the crusher for processing.”

Poor stockpile management, ore loss, dilution and grade contamination are common challenges for mining operations, costing millions of dollars annually, according to Pater, with many of these downstream problems and efficiencies in mining directly linked to upstream load and haul processes.

“The misallocation of even a single bucket of high-grade ore can lead to significant monetary losses for mines, either in the pit or in the processing plant,” he said. “At the other end of the spectrum, highly acidic waste material must also be allocated correctly to ensure its safe removal and disposal.”

Pater said the new technology meets the global mining industry’s need for instant, on-demand access to information across a mine that can only be achieved by sharing data in real time between the various mining systems.

“By connecting more of the dots and closing the feedback loop between loading, hauling, dumping and crushing, Argus addresses these issues head on,” he said.

Detailed material classification compliance reports also help geologists, surveyors and reconciliation engineers meet their legal reporting obligations, with easier access to more accurate data on what and how material has been distributed on site, MineWare says.

Argus is an advanced monitoring system for electric and hydraulic loaders, designed to manage payload, mine compliance, machine health and situational awareness.

Acubis and SatNetCom target Australia fleet management market

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Advitech Group’s Acubis and SatNetCom have announced a partnership to deliver an “end-to-end fleet management system offering to the Australian market”, they said.

The combined offering includes hardware, software, network connectivity and analytics, enabled by MineLink® (pictured), SatNetCom’s advanced mining fleet management system, and expands both companies’ footprints across the Asia Pacific region.

“The solution will help mining customers meet their current business challenges for fleet efficiency, connectivity, and increased uptime through the advanced fleet optimisation,” Acubis said.

Jeremy Pola, Director for Acubis, said: “Right from our first interaction, it was clear that SatNetCom is aligned with our customer centric focus. Our business is built upon developing solutions to provide customers with robust communications systems and reliable data access. We have a strong pedigree in delivering highly valued decision-making and business support tools. By working with SatNetCom, we will help ensure that our clients gain maximum advantage from optimising their fleet efficiency.”

Acubis is a system integrator that offers complete remote communication solutions within the oil and gas and mining industries, specialising in communication towers, solar communication trailers, digital radio systems, industrial wireless kinetic mesh, point to multipoint radio systems, IIoT and industrial CCTV solutions.

SatNetCom, meanwhile, has gained a reputation for designing, developing, installing, commissioning, training and supporting a vast range of world-class software, hardware, electronic and communications solutions for many types of businesses across the globe. It has a suite of fleet management and GPS tracking systems that increase productivity and improve fleet management for oil, gas and mining and the vast transportation businesses.

Rajant makes its underground mining move

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Rajant is now looking to leverage the leading wireless network expert status it has built up in the open-pit mining space for the benefit of the underground mining sector.

At the AIMEX 2019 event in Sydney, Australia, last month, Mike Foletti, Sales Director, Asia Pacific, and Geoff Smith, Executive Vice President Global Sales and Marketing, talked IM through the move, explaining that the exclusive provider of Kinetic Mesh® wireless networks had teamed up with other firms to ensure its below ground offering is as complete as can be.

The underground solution the company was pushing for the first time at the event has been made possible by the strategic partnership between Rajant, Poynting Antennas, Extronics, and Australian Droid + Robot, the company said.

In the underground setup, Rajant’s multi-radio, multi-frequency BreadCrumb® nodes combine with Poynting’s wide-band, bi-directional, circular polarised antenna system to create a “complete underground and tunnel-wide wireless network for mission-critical data, video, and voice communications”, the company says.

As part of this, Extronics rugged and intrinsically safe AeroScout Wi-Fi-based active RFID tags for personnel and asset tracking operate in real time over Rajant’s network, never breaking for handoff. With location tracking precision of about 10 m, the tags can be used to identify productivity bottlenecks for improved operational efficiency, Rajant says. And, lastly, Australian Droid + Robot’s Explora droids (one pictured at AIMEX 2019), which Australian Droid says have “ridiculous amounts of traction and agility”, come equipped with Rajant BreadCrumb technology. This allows the small all-terrain robots to carry out underground inspections, enabling the machine to independently scan, sense, and explore locations that may be hazardous to miners.

While this is the first time Rajant has talked about this underground solution, it has already been deployed at one mine site, according to Foletti.

“This is basically an enhancement on any fixed solution that is installed underground,” he said, explaining that the high throughput and low latency network benefits open-pit miners have received above ground for many years, is now be translated into underground mines.

While Rajant will continue to service the open-pit sector as it has beforehand, providing the type of robust network solutions it has for more than a decade, its decision to move underground is easy to understand.

For starters, many of the big open pits are reaching the end of their mine lives, with mining engineers now planning for underground operations.

At the same time as this, underground mines either in development or production are expanding operations at a pace that makes it hard and expensive for fixed or conventional wireless network solutions to keep up with.

Rajant explains: “Underground mines and tunnels are some of the most challenging environments in which to deploy network systems. Connectivity and throughput demands are high, but circular ramps and declines, stopes, and mine layout place limitations on how far wireless signals can travel.

“Many mines, therefore, depend on fibre to achieve reliable underground communications, but installing fibre in active drives, panels and declines is difficult to schedule and can create operational and maintenance nightmares.”

In addition, development plus drill and blast areas can rarely support fibre infrastructure. “It is not uncommon for trucks to accidentally catch and rip down sections of fibre and when that happens connectivity across the entire underground mine can be lost,” Rajant said.

In Rajant’s Wireless Mesh solution, BreadCrumb nodes act independently of each other. This means if one node is damaged or has an issue, the system continues to operate by using another communication route. In addition, the underground solution boasts the highest data throughput on the market, according to Foletti; latency is less than a millisecond, he added. Both features will become even more important as the industry continues its transition to automation.

Smith and Foletti said the company chose AIMEX 2019 and the Australian market to launch this solution as the company already has 35 installations on surface in Australia, at operations owned by some major mining companies, such as Anglo American. Anglo, in fact, is standardising all its global operations with Rajant Wireless Mesh network technology, according to Smith.

The Rajant team is confident these companies and others will see there is a strong investment case for introducing Wireless Mesh underground, too.

In addition to gaining traction with mining companies, Smith and Foletti said Rajant had been making inroads with equipment manufacturers, fleet management providers and other service providers in the mining ecosystem.

Smith mentioned Wabtec (now GE Wabtec) had made an investment in the company as it looked to incorporate its wireless communications technology into its rail systems, while Japanese conglomerate Mitsui had created a strategic partnership looking to rollout Rajant’s technology across several of its portfolio companies.

Despite the introduction of LTE and 5G technology to the underground environment, Smith and Foletti believe there is still a business case for Rajant’s Wireless Mesh technology.

As Foletti said, “If they [the mining operation] move[s], that’s where Rajant comes in.”

This is likely to see the communications infrastructure installed alongside other technologies in the future such as LTE, fibre and 5G in rapidly expanding mining areas such as development and production.

Boliden Kevitsa takes delivery of first EU-Stage-V-compliant Komatsu haul truck

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Boliden has received the first haul trucks from Komatsu as part of its investment in a new truck fleet at its Kevitsa (Finland) and Aitik (Sweden) open-pit base metal operations.

The delivery marks the entry of Komatsu electric dump trucks into the European market, according to the miner.

For Kevitsa, 17 Komatsu 830E-5 haul trucks will be delivered until January of 2020, with nine Komatsu 930E-5 haul trucks being delivered to Aitik until April 2020.

The new trucks are the first EU Stage-V haul trucks within Boliden’s fleet, significantly reducing diesel exhaust emissions, the company said. They will also provide improvements in operator environment and safety, Boliden added.

The Komatsu 830E-5 haul trucks have a 220 t payload and will replace the current truck fleet at Kevitsa, reducing the mine’s production cost, Boliden said. To further increase efficiency and productivity, the trucks will be equipped with dispatch and maintenance systems from Modular Mining to enable optimised production and tracking as well as fleet maintenance support, the company said.

Boliden mentioned the purchase of trucks back in October during its September quarter results, saying it had reached agreement with Komatsu regarding an investment totalling some SEK 900 million ($96 million). At the time, the company said all of the trucks were equipped for future electrification; an important point considering the trolley assist trial ongoing at Aitik.

To mark the delivery milestone of the first truck, a handover ceremony was arranged in Kevitsa on July 10.

During the event, strategies and technical solutions were presented by executives such as Boliden President and CEO, Mikael Staffas, and Managing Director and CEO of Komatsu Europe, Masatoshi Morishita.

Mikael Staffas said: “This is an important step in the development of our open-pit mines while improving our environmental performance from an already strong position. This [is], not least, because we now create opportunities for increased electrification and related productivity development.”

Masatoshi Morishita says: “Today is a milestone for Komatsu Europe. With the delivery of first CE-certified Electric Dump Trucks to Boliden, Komatsu can offer a full line-up of mining products and solutions in Europe as well. We aim this will only be the start.”

Wenco makes Latin America expansion plans with TecWise partnership

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Wenco International Mining Systems has announced a new partnership with TecWise Sistemas de Automação, a provider of technology and communications systems to the Latin America mining industry.

This new agreement makes TecWise the exclusive distributor of Wenco solutions in Brazil, paving the way for customers in the largest Latin American country to leverage “Wenco’s open and interoperable approach to mining technology”, Wenco said.

Wenco’s data solutions are designed to boost productivity, decrease operating costs, extend equipment life, and give mining companies actionable insights into their operations. Its Mine Performance Suite consists of systems for fleet management, high-precision machine guidance, predictive maintenance, collision avoidance, and mining business intelligence.

Unlike other solution providers, Wenco, a Hitachi Group Company since 2009, has designed its systems with an “open systems philosophy” that, it says, “empowers customers to freely integrate systems to support their unique business processes, data requirements, and reporting needs”.

“TecWise and Wenco formed this partnership based on their shared approach to delivering customer-focused solutions to the mining industry,” Wenco said. Founded in 1997, TecWise works closely with customers to design, deploy, and support fit-for-purpose, performance-driven technology that improves efficiency, safety, and productivity.

“The company’s history of strong support throughout Brazil made it a natural partner for Wenco as it expands through Latin America,” Wenco said.

Andrew Pyne, President and CEO of Wenco, said: “We’re excited to enter the strategic Brazilian mine market in partnership with TecWise. In line with our focus on growing our presence in Latin America, Brazil is a key strategic priority for Wenco, particularly as we collaborate with Hitachi Construction Machinery on their Solution Linkage for Mining platform.

“We have planned this collaborative entry into the Brazilian market for some time and we took our time to identify the right partner, which we found in TecWise. They will ensure our customers have knowledgeable, on-the-ground local support for Wenco solutions for the long haul.”

TecWise Business Director and CEO, Omar Garzedin, said: “The level of flexibility and openness of the Wenco solutions, the philosophy of interoperable standards – this is what initially caught our eye and made Wenco stand out among data solutions providers for the mining industry.

“Over the years, a common challenge for our mining clients has been the ‘closed stack’ approach of many suppliers – the difficulty in controlling and using their own operational data in the manner that they prefer.

“When we shared the Wenco philosophy – the ability to react to a client need in an agile manner, combined with a global track record – we all clearly saw new ways of addressing long-standing challenges in an innovative, scalable, and cost-effective manner.”

TecWise is in discussions with mines throughout Brazil to offer new ways to solve known problems, while extending new capabilities and options through Wenco’s open standard approach to mining technology, Wenco said.

Dingo improves Trakka predictive maintenance capabilities with AI

Communications in mining, Equipment maintenance, IoT, Mining equipment, Mining maintenance, Mining services, Mining software, , , , , , , , ,

Dingo says its new Trakka Predictive Analytics solution uses artificial intelligence and machine learning to predict impending equipment failures with confidence, allowing customers to proactively perform corrective maintenance actions to minimise downtime and optimise asset life.

The release comes around five months since the company laid the groundwork for the new solution with an announcement that it would introduce practical machine learning models built using real customer data and targeted at specific industry problems from January.

The new Trakka solution includes a series of sophisticated predictive analytics models to provide anomaly detection and failure prediction for asset intensive industries, the company said. These models are built by uniting failure data from actual equipment, “Dingo’s industry expertise and data science to address common component-specific failure modes, such as final drive gear teeth wear”.

Powered by a proprietary machine-learning library, the Trakka Predictive Analytics solution can, Dingo says, predict the time until asset/component failure with a high degree of accuracy. The company said its customers will reap the benefits of these remaining useful life (RUL) models (pictured) as they:

  • Reduce unexpected failures and downtime;
  • Reduce repair cost as scheduling is optimised;
  • Reduce loss of wasted potential in capital;
  • Reduce unnecessary maintenance activities;
  • Reduce personnel and process risk by creating a safer and more controlled environment;
  • Improve component life by acting earlier;
  • Improve confidence in planning component replacements;
  • Improve equipment availability and reliability;
  • Improve budgeting and the bottom line, and;
  • Improve business related processes such as procurement, logistics and management.

Dingo said: “Before any predictions can be made, Dingo’s domain experts and data science team work with a customer’s historical failure and condition monitoring data to deploy or adapt existing models or create new machine learning models to correctly identify failures within the customer’s fleet.

“This process typically involves data collecting, cleansing and validation to ensure model outputs are as accurate as possible. The transition to online predictive analytics is complete once the data ingestion pipeline is ready and the models are fully trained and tested.”

The predictive models are designed with scalability in mind, Dingo said, meaning they can be easily re-trained to work with a broad range of asset and failure mode problems experienced by real mining operations, making them highly reusable.

“The models are continuously optimised through ongoing validation and the input of new data and equipment performance information,” Dingo said.

And, the platform connects a broad range of systems and software to provide data surrounding asset health, including enterprise resource planning & enterprise asset management systems, computerised maintenance management systems, fleet management systems and all forms of condition monitoring data, including oil analysis, visual inspections, sensor data, vibration and thermography.

Hexagon to showcase mine planning software and fleet management solutions at Bauma

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Hexagon’s Geosystems and Mining divisions will present an extensive portfolio of construction and site management technology at the Bauma trade fair, in Munich, Germany, from April 8-14, 2019, the company said.

The company will be announcing several new products and solutions that will be shown at its booth, it said.

Johan Arnberg, Heavy Construction Portfolio President for Hexagon’s Geosystems division, said: “This year at Bauma we are proud to present solutions that provide easier access to data that improves workflow and safety around machines while moving toward autonomous operation.”

Among several solutions being shown on the company’s booth during the show were, the company said:

  • “How our technology solutions keep you flexible, yet open to constant data change around you — from start to finish of the entire project;
  • “How a unified digital strategy built on the integration of mine planning and fleet and task optimisation can help remove administrative burdens, reduce complexities and improve decision making;
  • “How a web-based reporting and analytics platform can unlock a mine’s numerous data sources to reveal critical insights into safety scenarios and performance trends;
  • “How the mining industry’s growing need to push deeper underground for deposits can be answered with technology that manages fleet and task optimisation below the surface in real time.”

Rob Daw, Chief Technology Officer for Hexagon’s Mining division, said: “We’ll be highlighting the digital realities capabilities of our mine planning software and our task and fleet management optimisation solutions at Bauma.

“The integration at the heart of our portfolio is helping mines to remove administrative burdens and reduce complexities. We’re looking forward to connecting with customers and anyone else interested in pursuing the benefits of a digital strategy.”

Mine excavators gain control with FMS and on-board weighing abilities

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A combination of a fleet management system (FMS) and hydraulic on-board weighing technology is set to transform mine excavators into a control centre for increased productivity, according to Position Partners.

The Australia-based positioning technology provider has announced a new solution for excavators working on mine sites, which combines the iVolve FMS (pictured) with RDS hydraulic excavator scales. This enables accurate weighing of material onto trucks, according to the company.

“For haul trucks already fitted with truck scales, the system acts as a tool to validate and compare truck tonnage. If trucks do not have on-board weighing technology, the excavator is able to store and transmit loading information to the truck, allowing mine managers to consistently and reliably track material movement across the site,” Position Partners says.

Andrew Granger, National Manager for Mining at Position Partners, said the combination of iVolve FMS and RDS excavator scales offers mine managers an “exciting productivity tool that maximises an excavator’s capacity by making it the centre of loading operations”.

“In consultation with our customers, we identified a need for this solution in the mining industry,” he added. “Having supported a similar solution in construction for some time, we were able to work with our suppliers to create a tailored system that is specifically designed to meet the needs of Australian mine sites.”

The iVolve fleet management system focuses on operational efficiency improvements directly related to production, maintenance, guidance and safety. This enables customers to increase productivity, cut costs and minimise risk.

The RDS hydraulic excavator scales, meanwhile, give operators accurate bucket weight information at their fingertips, increasing productivity and reducing machine wear.

Micromine Pitram takes control at Independence Group’s Nova operation

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Micromine has signed a contract with Independence Group (IGO) to help drive productivity and cost efficiencies at the Nova nickel-copper-cobalt operation in the Fraser Range of Western Australia.

As part of the agreement, Micromine will implement at Nova its fleet management and mine control software solution, Pitram.

This implementation of Pitram, a mine control and management reporting system aimed at delivering mining production efficiencies, comes on the back of a resurgence in Western Australia’s nickel sector, which increased in value by 26% in 2017–18 to $2.6 billion, after several years of decline, Micromine said.

Nova began commercial operation in July 2017 and produced 22,258 t of nickel, 9,545 t of copper and 740 t of cobalt at a payable cash cost of A$2.78/lb ($2.01/Ib) of nickel in the 2018 financial year. Production is expected to increase some 20% in FY19 to 27,000-30,000 t of nickel, 11,000-12,500 t of copper, and 850-950 t of cobalt.

Micromine’s Pitram Operations Manager, Daren Hinchliffe, said Pitram would be used by operations personnel, to capture insights and data from mobile equipment and underground mining activities, in real time.

“Using Pitram’s voice-based mine control system, underground operators can call in their activities, locations and status to mine control, and performance results can be monitored constantly, allowing for continuous improvement,” he said.

Pitram’s automated technology allows shift supervisors to keep track of what is going on throughout the mine, while allowing constantly monitoring of results and performance, he added.

“This will provide IGO with critical data as to how the mine is performing and, help identify bottlenecks, enabling the company to respond quickly to opportunities to implement process improvements,” he said.

IGO’s Chief Operating Officer, Matt Dusci, believes this will drive significant value through productivity efficiencies and cost savings at Nova and, ultimately, serve as a platform for future integration with automation at the mine.

Micromine’s roll-out of Pitram at Nova commenced in December and is expected to be completed in early 2019.

Maptek to acquire 100% of Minlog to permanently bridge mine planning/production gap

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Mine planning software specialist Maptek has agreed to step up its investment in Minlog and its Production Management Information Systems technology, with the aim of acquiring 100% of the company over the next 18 months.

Maptek said the deal builds on a longstanding partnership between the two companies to bridge the gap between mine planning and mine production.

Maptek has been involved in a partnership with MinLog and its production management and management information systems technology since 2008. When the tie-up was announced in November of that year, Maptek said it “will provide a greater global marketing, delivery and support capability as well as deliver enhanced product functionality to global customers in the short and long term”.

Prior to this, the two companies already had a relationship whereby MinLog acted as distributor of Maptek’s MineSuite product in Africa.

Minlog says it develops, deploys and supports mining processes with intuitive, meaningful information that helps operations manage product flow and performance. It does this through production management solutions, including fleet management and management information systems.

Maptek said: “This latest investment will see Maptek increase its ownership of the business and the products to 100% over the next 18 months. Production Management data is considered a key component in delivering on Maptek’s commitment to add significant value to the data available to mining companies.”

Commenting on the investment, Maptek MD Peter Johnson said: “There is a huge gain in performance and efficiency to be had by combining the data models used in Mine Planning with the systems and processes applied in Mine Operations.

“The orebody knowledge and characteristics have an impact on mine performance well after the planning stages are complete, but there has been little ability to refer to and make decisions with the benefit of that orebody knowledge in a tactical, operational decision support capacity in a mine production environment.”

Under the new arrangement, MinLog will continue to operate, with current management and staff “remaining committed to delivering the world’s best Production Management systems”, Maptek said.

MinLog MD Karel Gilliland said: “MinLog leverages flexible service bus integration and a cloud- or server-hosted data lake containing a validated and contextualised digital record of all equipment and mining fleet being tracked. This enables us to deliver a powerful range of production management functionality across the whole supply chain in a mine.”

He added: “In addition, MinLog develops advanced DSF technology, allowing near real-time data acquisition from fixed and mobile equipment underground for reliable, cost effective and flexible deployment.”