Tag Archives: Michael Baldwin

RPMGlobal seeks to optimise shift-based trucking requirements with FleetOptimiser

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RPMGlobal (RPM), a leader in mining software technology, has announced its new fleet optimisation solution at MINExpo 2024 in Las Vegas, Nevada.

FleetOptimiser continues RPM’s journey towards cloud-based solutions, offering a product designed for customers to calculate and optimise their trucking requirements for a shift, the company says.

The solution combines a 3D, visual user interface with RPM’s universal fleet calculation wrapped up in a secure, web accessible, cloud-based solution.

Up until now desktop models and spreadsheets have been used to calculate the viability of the mine plan. This creates downstream issues with difficulty maintaining data, accuracy issues and version control, RPM says. Several products have provided truck-limited scheduling over the years, which works well in a long-term horizon, however applying the same techniques to the more detailed short-term space has always fallen short.

FleetOptimiser uses the RPM travel time calculation engine, the industry standard, that is embedded across many of their mining software solutions. It calculates productivity for trucks across a haulage network while matching truck productivity to targeted loader productivity.

According to Michael Baldwin, RPMGlobal’s Chief Commercial Officer, engineers have been dreaming about this product for years. “There has always been conflict between planners and operations with respect to what an achievable plan actually is,” Baldwin said. “FleetOptimiser lets the planner optimise realistic targets for the upcoming shifts while operations can use FleetOptimiser to reconfigure fleet throughout the shift as parameters change, all through a web-based 3D intuitive user experience,” he added.

Mine planners who use XECUTE, or other execution scheduling applications, can rapidly react to changes in truck availability by simulating the impact on load productivity, and then incorporate the required changes in their plan.

The solution also provides the user with functionality to update and maintain the current road network if required. Calibrated fleet settings can also be controlled through the solution, allowing for standardisation across the entire organisation.

Baldwin added: “The market’s excitement around FleetOptimiser is clear, and the feedback from our early adopters has been overwhelmingly positive. FleetOptimiser offers planners the solution they have been seeking and promises to deliver a significant productivity shift for the industry.”

RPMGlobal’s AMT helps National Plant & Equipment bolster fleet availability

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National Plant & Equipment has successfully increased fleet availability during a heightened period of growth after implementing RPMGlobal’s leading asset management solution, AMT™.

Mark Ackroyd, National Group Managing Director, said: “AMT assisted the company in adopting a forward-looking, proactive approach to asset management that has been critical to its success.

“National Plant & Equipment has been on a strong growth trajectory and AMT has enabled us to scale effectively during this period.”

He said the asset management solution permitted the company to gauge the true costs of operating equipment across a multitude of sites while simplifying issues that accompany growth.

AMT, RPMGlobal’s intelligent asset management software, helps mining companies, contractors, original equipment manufacturers and their dealers effectively manage their assets using a unique Dynamic Life Cycle Costing (DLCC) engine, RPMGlobal says.

This DLCC engine enables mining organisations to take a proactive approach to asset management. This includes the ability to identify asset life cycle risks and opportunities; control and curtail maintenance costs; reduce unplanned downtime; and report and analyse the critical engineering, maintenance process, application, and operational drivers of asset performance.

National Plant & Equipment selected AMT during a period of growth that enabled it to consistently meet reliability and availability targets by harnessing AMT’s DLCC engine, RPMGlobal said.

With enhanced visibility of day-to-day asset maintenance requirements that could scale alongside its growth, National Plant & Equipment was able to gauge the costs of operating equipment across more than 40 different sites.

“AMT can seamlessly integrate with any Enterprise Resource Planning system and provides a live zero-based forecast at any time, ensuring National Plant & Equipment consistently achieves an accurate, on-demand maintenance budget at all times,” the company said.

Prior to implementing AMT, National Plant & Equipment managed its assets through multiple spreadsheets. As a result, this made it very difficult to nurture relationships with its customers and optimise asset effectiveness, according to RPMGlobal.

“We are now able to conduct real-time maintenance budgeting instead of relying on static maintenance plans, which has eliminated room for error,” Ackroyd said. “With AMT, we now have one source of truth for the business nation-wide, giving us an accurate view of asset management.”

RPMGlobal Australian General Manager, Michael Baldwin, said it was critical for mining contractors to have a centralised management solution to optimise asset management activities.

“Being proactive about asset management is a key competitive advantage for contractors, providing the ability to reduce unplanned downtime of equipment and keep operational costs low to maximise overall asset performance,” he said.

“RPMGlobal remains passionate about empowering our customers so they can better measure and manage their asset management improvement journey, and it’s great to see companies such as National Plant & Equipment achieve such a high level of success with AMT.”

RPMGlobal XECUTEs another mine planning and scheduling software update

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XECUTE is the latest in RPMGlobal’s extensive line of mine planning and scheduling software solutions to receive an update.

XECUTE 1.10 builds on the core capabilities of XECUTE and features advanced upgrades to improve the live planning environment. This uses “enterprise enablement” to deliver real inter-departmental collaboration, according to RPMGlobal.

XECUTE was designed to bridge the gap between short-term planning and operational execution and has been adopted at several sites globally, RPMGlobal says.

The latest updates have seen the product integrated with MinVu, a suite of products the company acquired earlier this year.

When the MinVu acquisition was announced in December 2017, RPMGlobal said XECUTE would “be able to immediately utilise the MinVu integration adaptors to bring back data such as Equipment GPS coordinates, actual bucket positions, material movements, drill hole details, actual production rates and incorporate them into the production plan. This will extend the functionality of XECUTE whilst increasing the number of modules in the RPM suite.”

MinVu’s ability to pull this data directly from areas where it would otherwise remain in silos, means manual data processes are eliminated and users spend less time gathering and manipulating data and producing reports, according to RPMGlobal.

MinVu, itself, received an update last month focused on integration with the Australia-headquartered company’s Enterprise Planning Framework.

RPMGlobal has also started to build XECUTE into an augmented reality environment on iPads, iPhones and Android devices, according to Michael Baldwin, Executive General Manager of Product Strategy.

“This means you can access the information on mobile devices regardless of your physical location, which is often a problem with remote mining operations. This also allows for clear communication of the plan, including any updates to the plan,” he said.

The latest release also sees new scheduling functionality, including upgrades to the integrated product optimiser as well as user interface improvements that make the live planning a better overall user experience, according to the company.

XECUTE aims to minimises data entry and maximise planning value and adaptability by using automation to connect planning with operations, with 3D cross-team collaboration and integrated design and scheduling, according to RPM Global.

The system combines RPMGlobal’s proprietary Product Optimiser with a game-inspired 3D interface. Enterprise data feeds provide planners with the most up-to-date schedule inputs, allowing outputs to be automatically pushed to downstream systems and closing the loop between planning and execution.

RPMGlobal said: “The companies that have adopted XECUTE have realised the potential of a collaborative, live planning environment and the improvements this could bring to their mining operation.”

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.”