Tag Archives: IMAFS

RPMGlobal’s SaaS model enhanced with IMAFS and Shift Manager cloud-based transitions

RPMGlobal says it has accelerated the transition of its product suite to the cloud, releasing two new cloud offerings to the market.

The company’s IMAFS™ inventory optimisation and Shift Manager™ operational management solutions have now made the transition, the company said.

IMAFS uses artificial intelligence-based algorithms to enhance inventory management and forecasting accuracy for miners. It connects to an organisations ERP, enabling operations to continuously improve the accuracy of parts availability, reduce inventories, decrease stockouts and reduce equipment downtimes, according to the company.

Transitioning IMAFS from a hosted solution in the cloud to a full Software as a Service (SaaS) model will provide users with greater flexibility in security and authentication, RPMGlobal claims. As a result of the shift to the cloud, customers can now continuously optimise their inventory management processes.

“The move to the cloud has as an array of benefits, including increased ease of use, as users now only need a browser to access the IMAFS software,” RPMGlobal says. “Other benefits include high levels of scalability and availability, a modern API interface, faster deployment time and improved cost effectiveness.”

Shift Manager, meanwhile, is a short-term task planning and execution solution that enables users to collaborate and communicate through a single, integrated plan. The software allows users to manage tasks and resource allocations to drive more effective on-shift decision making and greater compliance to plan, according to the company.

As a cloud-enabled hosted solution, users are able to execute short-term shift planning through a single, integrated, web-based application without the need to be physically on site, the company says. Other benefits include enhanced security and collaboration across departments and a rapid implementation methodology that includes several pre-built integration points.

RPMGlobal Chief Technology Officer, Paul Beesley, says cloud adoption will help the industry unlock additional productivity and sustainability improvements.

“Cloud applications facilitate remote collaboration and the scalability that mining organisations require while creating robust data storage solutions that are more cost-efficient when compared to outdated hardware,” he said.

“Our products have been designed to leverage the tools and services available on the cloud platforms to rapidly build enhanced solutions for our customers. The transition to a full cloud offering across our full product portfolio is being enabled due to our above industry average investment in research and development and we look forward to continuing our progress in releasing more cloud offerings to the market soon.”

RPMGlobal Chief Executive Officer, Richard Mathews, added: “The company is committed to investing in technical innovation to enable customers to operate their mines as efficiently as possible.

“With more customers adopting a remote-operating business strategy through technology enablement, our work to migrate other products to a complete SaaS model will ramp up as we strive to add additional value for our present and future customers.”

RPMGlobal looks for increased XPAC, IMAFS market share with supported language adds

RPMGlobal says it has expanded the reach of its industry-leading planning and scheduling software, XPAC Solutions, adding Chinese to the list of supported languages.

XPAC commodity-based solutions support multiple mining methods for both open pit and underground operations including metals mines, bulk commodities, oil sands, diamonds, potash and quarrying.

Building on a recent major upgrade that marked the introduction of hybrid scheduling, the latest releases of XPAC Solutions is focused on supporting the increasing user base with additional language support features, the company said.

The mine planning solution now supports five languages (English, French, Spanish, Russian and Chinese) across its commodity-specific mining software suite.

These language enhancements come as the company’s client base continues to expand, with the latest language compatibility upgrade designed to strengthen Chinese operations using the software, according to the company.

David Batkin, RPMGlobal’s Executive Manager, Product Strategy, said: “With the rapid growth of our solution footprint, we are committed to ensuring we invest in true internationalisation, helping our global customer base maximise the value they receive from our solutions”.

RPMGlobal has also added language support for its newly acquired inventory optimisation management software tool, IMAFS. IMAFS is an inventory management and forecasting software solution that uses proprietary artificial intelligence algorithms to greatly improve inventory management, the company says.

In the latest release of IMAFS, the product now supports three languages (Spanish, Portuguese and Russian), ensuring the product’s customer base has a “seamless user experience in regions speaking those languages”, it said.

Other enhancements to IMAFS include a new user interface, making it easier than before to use the software, along with improved visualisation of frequency, usage multiples and lead times.

Commenting on the addition of the new language support, Batkin said the company prides itself on offering comprehensive global multi-lingual support for its products that meets the needs of its global customer base.

“Along with further advancements to our mining software, we anticipate the expansion of more language offerings across our software suite to ensure we are delivering enhanced value to our global customer base,” he said.

RPMGlobal says its software offering is deployed all over the world and is supported by 24 offices globally.

RPMGlobal futureproofs inventory management for miners

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

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.