Tag Archives: Metso Metrics

Metso strengthens equipment, processes, technology and people connections

Automation, Comminution of minerals, Communications in mining, Environmental, Equipment maintenance, IoT, Mineral processing, Mining consumables, Mining equipment, Mining maintenance, Mining services, Mining software, Sustainable mining, , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Now more than ever remote assistance is needed to keep the lights on at many mining operations across the globe.

The onset of COVID-19-related restrictions has focused the industry’s attention on just how far it can and should automate operations and – nearer term – how it can keep downtime to a minimum at its processing plants.

Metso has been investing in the development of new technologies and digital solutions to aid this cause for decades.

Think of how VisioRock™ and VisioFroth™, combined with Advanced Process Control OCS-4D™, have helped operators monitor rock sizes and flotation efficiency, and optimise production overall, from control rooms far away from where the action is happening. More of its products – such as the recently launched VPX™ filter for tailings dewatering and the Foresight™ smart mining crushing and screening stations – can also be connected to various devices to help monitor equipment.

This wide portfolio of technologies to collect, analyse, and act on data from minerals processing plants was recently combined under its Metso Foresight digital portfolio, which consists of cloud-based IoT and on-premise solutions that collect and analyse machine and process data.

The move has consolidated tools such as the Metso Metrics core remote conditioning monitoring solution and the recently acquired capabilities of HighService Service – which has been providing maintenance and remote monitoring for gearless mill drives for over 20 years – into one integrated solution that mining companies can tap into.

Johanna Newcomb, Vice President, Performance Solutions at Metso, says these recent organic and inorganic investments reflect the company “doubling down” on its digital focus.

“In 2018, we launched Metso Metrics and, in 2019, the acquisition of HighService Service added remote maintenance services to our offering,” she told IM as part of a recent IM Insight Interview.

This year, the company launched its Metso Performance Center solution to keep up this rapid digital momentum.

These centres, currently in Santiago, Chile, and Changsha, China, have been established at just the right time, helping mining companies troubleshoot and carry out maintenance tasks remotely when bringing experts to site may not be possible.

Newcomb explained the rationale for their introduction: “Remote monitoring and analytics, combined with on-site assistance as needed, provides a new, proactive way for Metso to support our customers; to reduce variability of their processes, to optimise the processes and to maximise the use of their assets.”

The creation of the centres has been geared towards leveraging the vast expertise and experience within Metso of equipment, minerals processing and carrying out servicing on a global basis, according to Newcomb.

“The Metso Performance Centers are a new way of funnelling that expertise and data-driven analytics for the benefit of our customers globally,” she said.

While improving process stability, asset reliability and process efficiency and sustaining the improvement over the long term are the key aims of these centres, this type of remote service support could see the philosophy of on-site maintenance teams shift tremendously.

Instead of carrying out ‘firefighting’ tasks, they can focus on proactive elements that optimise the processing plant over the long term, according to Newcomb.

Metso has been able to facilitate such a shift using many of its digital solutions that reside at customer sites such as advanced process control systems, Visio and Audio systems, ore tracking platforms, and others.

But, how do these service centres make the most of these digital solutions?

Soledad Barbera, Head of Metso Performance Centres, explained: “The services are available globally and provided by a multi-disciplinary team of experts. There are two centres in operation, one in Santiago, Chile, currently supporting all time zones, and one in Changsha, China, which services the Chinese market area.”

In the ‘first line of defence’ at these centres, specialised engineers monitor connected equipment and processes. This sees them scrutinising analytics, interpreting data, and delivering insights and recommendations for actions. Customers – and potentially an on-site team of Metso technicians – receive this information.

Barbera says Metso is in the process of expanding the first line of monitoring in different market areas, increasing the network of monitoring engineers and adding market area satellite locations. “This will provide an interface to get closer to our customers and speak to them in their own language as much as possible,” she told IM in the IM Insight Interview.

In the centre’s ‘second line of defence’ – incorporating more complex problems – expert advisors with broader operational experience and knowledge of the customer’s applications will be drafted in to solve issues.

The ‘third line of defence’ will see the company’s global network of experts mobilise to help support long-term solutions development. This includes reliability engineers and product experts.

Proactive performance

These remote services help Metso ensure desired performance is reached in deliveries and that this performance is sustained or improved further through a long-term service offering, according to Newcomb.

“By closely connecting the remote services with our existing offering, we are able to mobilise required assistance, changes, parts, etc faster, and elevate the level of proactiveness in our deliveries and services overall,” she said.

This has had a tangible impact on operations at the processing plants connected to these centres, according to Barbera.

“With remote diagnostics now offered through the Metso Performance Center, we have helped customers reduce unplanned downtime by 30%,” she said, referencing an example from the company’s gearless mill drive monitoring division (acquired with HighService Service). “We have also helped cut in half the on-site time needed to resolve failures through this remote monitoring service.”

Metso ensures all customer data is protected throughout the exchange, according to Newcomb.

“We have secure, modular connectivity options and fully respect the privacy of our customers’ data,” she said.

This broad offering has already attracted many customers to the centres, with Barbera saying around 100 pieces of equipment and solutions are currently being serviced through the remote facilities. “They are critical assets for our customers,” Barbera explained.

Expect this number to increase in the very near term, with Metso looking to further broaden the centre’s offering.

“We are expanding the analytics and digital solutions for different types of equipment and services,” Barbera said.

This expansion is very timely.

“The world has changed, and we are living a new way of doing business,” Barbera said. “Many customers want us to support them remotely and continue to be able to give them advice and recommendations.

“With the help of remote services and the latest technologies, Metso is still able to offer expert support to our customers, without a delay.”

This interview is an extract of an IM Insight Interview that will be published later this month

Metso adds crushing & screening flexibility to the process flowsheet with My Plant Planner

Bulk handling, Comminution of minerals, IoT, Metallurgy, Mineral processing, Mining equipment, Mining services, Mining software, , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Metso is looking to increase access to and improve the visualisation of mining process flowsheets with a new tool that could ultimately see more of its equipment end up at mine sites.

My Plant Planner offers engineering customers and mining end users the ability to model a flowsheet after inputting certain key parameters of their orebodies. They can then also visualise this plant layout in a platform that is free to use.

Metso, along with other OEMs, has provided visualisation tools to the industry for many years.

The company’s Bruno simulation software has over 7,000 users and has been helping customers select the right equipment for their mines since 1994. This software includes all the necessary Metso equipment, such as feeders, crushers and screens, and shows outputs for different end products, providing users with the data they need to make informed decisions on the right equipment.

My Plant Planner utilises this simulation expertise, but does so at a much earlier stage of the equipment selection process.

With the tool, customers can pick and choose different types of crushers, screens and conveyors to get the perfect balance for the circuit and identify bottlenecks to understand where extra capacity is needed, according to Metso.

Important factors, such as capacity, load, and power draw, are updated in real time as the circuit is designed and the parameters updated. At any point, it is possible to download a report that gathers together all the details about the plant being designed. It includes details on the chosen crushers, screens, conveyors and their parameters, including power consumption.

“We decided to develop this tool as we were seeing different types of requirements from our customers and EPCMs (engineering procurement and construction management) at the time around prefeasibility studies and we wanted to be more reactive to this,” Guillaume Lambert, Vice President of Metso’s Crushing Systems business line, explained to IM.

Prior to using such a tool, these EPCM firms were developing flowsheets for economic studies – the type of documents investors use to gauge the potential profitability of a mine development – over a matter of months or years in tandem with OEMs, before moving onto obtaining quotes based on their mining customers’ budgets.

As time has gone on, these firms have been asked by their mining customers to factor in more requirements into these studies. One may require a reduced plant footprint due to the proximity of indigenous communities; another may request that energy consumption is reduced in line with existing available power infrastructure in the region.

The requests vary depending on the size of company, the location of the project, the commodity and many other elements.

This is where the three-dimensional aspect of My Plant Planner is very important, according to Lambert, providing customers with not only a visualisation of the flowsheet, but also a gauge of the physical constraints that cannot be represented in 2D form.

This means companies assessing brownfield assessments can factor in height and width restrictions of existing infrastructure against capital expenditure requirements.

The turnaround time for the type of analysis being carried out by My Plant Planner is also a key selling point, allowing companies to generate results in a matter of hours, as opposed to waiting two to three weeks for a flowsheet assessment.

This speed could allow customers to explore multiple processing flowsheets in a simplified form as part of their due diligence process – for example weighing up a three stage conventional crushing and screening flowsheet against a HPGR circuit.

So far, the crushing and screening portion of the process flowsheet will be covered with the launch of My Plant Planner, but, based on customer feedback, the company plans to expand to the filtration process and other downstream elements.

As to why the company started with crushing and screening, the answer is an obvious one, according to Lambert.

Metso already has Bruno and VPS software (mine to mill assessments) in place – “we don’t have to reinvent the wheel in this regard”, Lambert said – and it is the area of the flowsheet that tends to come with the most equipment options.

“You can have three crushers in parallel, or one big one; a large screen in close circuit, or a smaller one in open circuit, etc,” he said.

It is this flexibility that miners require today. New projects coming to the table are very rarely 20-plus year developments that require a uniform comminution process over their lifetime.

Capex-conscious miners and their investors are instead bankrolling developments that tend to come with less than 10 years of life and are conservative when it comes to throughput. This is with the idea that they will fund the mine life extensions and expansions from existing cash flow when the operation is at full tilt.

These growth plans will inevitably come with the need to amend the process flowsheet down the line – which is where the plant footprint visualisation ability of My Plant Planner could come into play.

Flexibility such as this is also coming into Metso’s equipment line-up, with the company, only last week, launching its flexible FIT™ and smart Foresight™ crushing and screening stations for mining.

The FIT stations are designed with a focus on speed and flexibility, with two stations to choose from – Recrushing station and Jaw station – while the Foresight stations are equipped with smart automation technology including Metso Metrics™, VisioRock™, level sensors and crusher variable frequency drive.

These modular solutions are geared towards reducing capital expenditure and providing shorter lead times. In other words, they offer more flexibility.

It is tools such as My Plant Planner that will highlight just how important this flexibility could be over the life of mine of a chosen operation, providing users with the visibility to help navigate choppy commodity cycles and ensure their operations remain profitable over the long term.

You can find more details on My Plant Planner by clicking here.

Metso goes modular with new crushing and screening plants

Comminution of minerals, Mineral processing, Mining equipment, Mining services, Sustainable mining, , , , , , , , , ,

Metso is introducing two new modular “game-changing solutions” for mining crushing and screening plants that, it says, will provide significant resource and time savings for mines.

The flexible FIT™ stations and the smart Foresight™ stations offer a wide range of flexible solutions with ease of maintenance and time savings for any operation, according to the company.

Guillaume Lambert, Vice President, Crushing Systems at Metso, said: “We have the experience in delivering crushing and screening plants with over one hundred installations globally. We also understand the needs of customers today in the evolving industry. That is why we are using our legacy and expertise to introduce these modularised crushing stations that focus on capital expenditure reduction and shorter lead times.”

The FIT stations are designed with a focus on speed and flexibility. There are two stations to select from – Recrushing station and Jaw station. The steel structures are supplied in modules that fit easily into containers for transportation, according to the company, which also reduces on-site welding usually required and allows for quicker start-up. Container delivery reduces delivery time by up to 25% compared with similar crushing and screening plants, while erection time is also reduced by up to 15%.

The Foresight stations are equipped with smart automation technology including Metso Metrics™, VisioRock™, level sensors and crusher variable frequency drive. These features enable optimised crusher speeds, preventative maintenance and optimised production levels up to 6,000 t/h, the company says. The MP cone crusher station features a scalping MF™ screen and an MP™ Series cone crusher.

Both stations come with proven Metso equipment and technology to deliver maximum productivity for even the most demanding mining applications, the company said.

Boliden Kevitsa collaborating on process plant maintenance

Base metals, Comminution of minerals, Communications in mining, Equipment maintenance, IoT, Mine operation news, Mineral processing, Mining equipment, Mining maintenance, Mining services, Mining software, , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Boliden is a front-runner when it comes to applying technology and innovation to its Europe-based mines, and the company is now leading an industry move in condition monitoring and predictive maintenance in its process plants.

At its Kevitsa copper-nickel mine, 130 km north of the Arctic Circle in Finland, Boliden has been collaborating with the likes of IBM Maximo, OSISoft, SKF and Metso on condition monitoring and predictive maintenance solutions, according to Sami Pelkonen, Maintenance and Engineering Manager at Boliden Kevitsa.

Expansion in the plans

The mine is in the throes of an SEK800 million ($82 million) expansion that will see plant throughput go from 7.8 Mt/y to 9.5 Mt/y. This involves the addition of a new autogenous mill and peripheral equipment (including a new Metso MF series screen), and a new mill building. Commissioning of the new equipment is expected in 2020, with the mine reaching full 9.5 Mt/y capacity in 2021.

With this expansion going on, plant maintenance has moved up the agenda.

Some 80% of process plant maintenance is currently pre-scheduled, with the Kevitsa mine achieving, on average, 93% availability from its equipment, according to Pelkonen, but Boliden Kevitsa is looking to increase these numbers.

Pelkonen told IM late in October that the Kevitsa mine has been looking to acquire “good quality…and useful data to support our daily maintenance operations and procedures” at its plant. This is all part of the company’s plan to increase uptime and cut costs at the operation.

As part of this initiative, it installed the IBM Maximo asset management system in May of this year. At the same time, the operation has been working with the Boliden Mines Technology Department on a wider asset management program.

When it comes to plant reliability, Boliden Kevitsa has enlisted the help of SKF (for condition monitoring of bearings throughout the plant), OSISoft for process data acquisition, and Metso to ensure uptime of mineral processing equipment is maximised and unplanned downtime is reduced.

Partnering for performance

The partnership with Metso dates back to before the mine was acquired by Boliden in 2016, but in recent years the two have collaborated on crusher and mill uptime projects, with the OEM supplying mill liners and wear parts that can be switched out quickly and cost effectively. The two firms have also been in constant communication about accessing and analysing valuable process plant data during the last three years.

When the mine acquired a new MF screen from Metso in May (pictured), it decided now was the time to trial the new Metso Metrics predictive maintenance platform in this part of the flowsheet.

Pelkonen explained: “After the increase in production (to 9.5 Mt/y), the front end will be even more critical for us, so we have to be aware if any failures are developing in our front end; especially in our screen.”

The remote location of Kevitsa, situated some 40 km by road from Sodankylä, is also behind the need for this type of condition monitoring and predictive maintenance.

“If something happens like we have an equipment failure, it takes around one hour for our employees to get to the mine,” he said. “Condition monitoring helps us address the need to get resources to site in the correct time.”

The Metso Metrics test paid off almost instantly, when, soon after installation, the company noticed there was something wrong with the running speed of the screen.

“The indication we received from Metso Metrics helped us map out that there were two broken V belts. We were able to cut the downtime to a minimum thanks to the information coming from Metrics,” Pelkonen explained.

Sami Pelkonen was speaking to IM as part of an upcoming Insight Interview with experts from Boliden Kevitsa and Metso that will be published in early-2020