Tag Archives: SAP

Syntax launches Mining and Natural Resources Center of Excellence

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Syntax, a multi-cloud and mission-critical applications managed cloud provider, has announced the launch of its global Mining and Natural Resources Center of Excellence (COE).

The COE will be led in conjunction with Illumiti, a Syntax company, which brings more than 20 years of experience delivering global, SAP-based solutions to more than 40 mining customers.

It is designed to bring experts within the organisation together to develop, build, and implement leading edge, holistic minerals and metals mining solutions.

“This COE allows us to bring together all of our expertise, across lines of business and geographies, to provide holistic solutions that drive cutting-edge innovation for our clients,” Christian Primeau, Global CEO at Syntax, said. “I’m proud of our transformative work as trusted advisors in supporting businesses focused on strategic and on-shore critical resources worldwide, and I look forward to the acceleration of this impact with today’s announcement.”

The announcement follows the recent launch of Syntax’s global Industry Centers of Excellence. These centres reflect Syntax and Illumiti’s  knowledge base and capabilities in four key industry segments, including Manufacturing, Engineering, Construction and Operations, Mining and Natural Resources and Professional Services.

Nigel Shuffler, Global Head of the Mining & Natural Resources Practice at Syntax, said: “With the demand for natural resources continuing to grow in today’s rapidly evolving economy, it’s essential for mining and natural resource companies to have reliable, sustainable and safe operations to meet customer and market expectations. With our SAP-certified S/4HANA template, and specialised technical support for mission-critical operations tailored to the mining industry, we are able to reduce implementation times and costs as we prepare customers to navigate the future of this industry.”

Syntax and Illumiti, a Syntax company, are recognised as leading systems integrators for pragmatic, robust and quick time-to-value SAP ERP solutions with SAP-certified mining templates, business-centric mobile apps and a comprehensive reporting toolset, the companies say.

Capstone Mining to modernise IT infrastructure, lower costs with SAP solution

Base metals, IoT, Mining services, Mining software, , , ,

SAP SE has announced that Canada-based Capstone Mining has selected the RISE with SAP offering as part of a company-wide enterprise resource planning (ERP) consolidation initiative.

Capstone, a base metal producer, is committed to responsible mining practices, including its approach to sustainability, which embraces technological innovations, SAP says. Through the implementation of RISE with SAP, Capstone aims to modernise its IT infrastructure and lower costs.

The company plans to implement SAP S/4HANA Cloud on Microsoft Azure, moving from SAP ERP Central Component (SAP ECC) by the end of 2021. Capstone selected RISE with SAP not only for consolidation but also for improved flexibility and ability to scale, according to the company.

Capstone’s CFO, Raman Randhawa, said: “As commodity prices soar, we need to keep our operations competitive to maximise our output and opportunities. Consolidating our IT platforms and moving to a more secure, low-cost cloud option will allow us to modernise and streamline our business.”

Capstone chose to implement RISE with SAP, SAP’s business transformation as a service, to leverage the success it enjoyed with its legacy SAP software that was active at its Pinto Valley mine in USA (pictured), SAP says. The implementation will help to smooth the transition of SAP services across its other mining operations and will provide Capstone with a unified view of its overall business operations.

BHP signs cloud technology pacts with Amazon Web Services and Microsoft

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BHP has selected Amazon Web Services (AWS) and Microsoft as long-term cloud providers to help improve safety, productivity, and reliability across its globally-operated assets.

The collaborations with AWS and Microsoft will support two distinct parts of BHP’s operations, it said.

AWS will power BHP’s digital transformation by providing capabilities in data analytics and machine learning to rapidly deploy digital solutions globally to improve operational performance.

Microsoft, through its Azure platform, will host BHP’s global applications portfolio. This will enable BHP to leverage its existing Microsoft licences and SAP applications portfolio and help to reduce its reliance on regional data centres, it said.

Microsoft says its multi-year strategic partnership with BHP will build on its existing Microsoft Cloud foundations with Office 365, Dynamics 365 and Azure, and will enable BHP to improve safety, productivity and sustainably at its frontline operations across Australia, the Americas and globally.

It added: “Microsoft will help deliver strong digital capability, data support and security, which will help BHP accelerate its journey to cloud, transitioning its global applications including SAP, in a portfolio move to Azure. This represents the transition of up to 17,500 TB of data to Azure.”

BHP Chief Technical Officer, Laura Tyler, said collaborating with two world-leading cloud providers highlighted the importance of cloud to support BHP’s digital transformation.

“Digital technology is in everything we do at BHP, from how we connect to our customers and partners every day to how we extract and find resources more safely and sustainably,” she said.

“We are leveraging next-generation technologies like cloud, machine learning, and data analytics to solve complex business problems and unlock value even faster.

“Cloud is the foundation to our plans, and it will enable us to deploy digital solutions to the frontline quickly and at scale. Cloud will dramatically reduce the amount of hardware on sites and reduce costs.

“We are thrilled to have AWS and Microsoft on board to ensure we have a strong foundation to accelerate our digital transformation plans and lift capability across the business.”

RPMGlobal’s enterprise mining software solutions win SAP seal of approval

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RPMGlobal says it has demonstrated its ongoing commitment to its SAP partnership and providing interoperable, enterprise software solutions to the mining industry after receiving an SAP integration certification for its enterprise product offerings.

The integration green light was provided by SAP certifying that RPM’s enterprise solutions can integrate with SAP S/4HANA and SAP S/4HANA Cloud Extended Edition using standard integration technologies. These certifications further support RPM’s development of cloud enabled solutions, the company said.

RPM and SAP have been working together for well over a decade and RPM secured the latest designation following a detailed process whereby separately deployable components were put through stringent qualification procedures to earn the integration approval, it explained. This entailed RPM’s integration connectors and product architecture being scrutinised by SAP’s development laboratory.

The SAP certification is a significant indication of the technical alignment and interoperability capabilities between the solutions, according to RPM. It will will enable the exchange of information between SAP and RPM’s enterprise product offerings which span the entire mine lifecycle, from design and scheduling, through to maintenance and finance.

Paul Beesley, RPM’s Chief Technology Officer, said the SAP certification was a significant endorsement of the company’s quality technical infrastructure which underpins its enterprise offerings.

“RPM remains committed to a robust software integration strategy that builds complimentary products to support the SAP technology stack,” he said. “This enables our customers to have a smooth and direct flow of business data between SAP solutions and our software offerings so it’s very rewarding to receive this additional certification.”

With more mining operations implementing digital transformation initiatives, connecting disparate systems to foster the exchange of critical information is an industry imperative, Beesley added.

With enterprise integration forming a core part of RPM’s philosophy from the beginning, Beesley said the recent certification builds upon the company’s ongoing commitment to working with SAP.

“SAP remains the industry standard for Enterprise Resource Planning software used by mining companies,” he said. “This certification ensures our current and future customers can integrate operational technology with business processes to achieve a connected mining enterprise that provides a single source of truth across the organisation.”

K+S shifts digital analytics gears after trials provide InSiTE

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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.

Barrick’s digital transformation moves forward with SAP implementation

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Barrick Gold says its new transactional system, SAP S/4HANA, has gone live at its 61.5%-owned Nevada Gold Mines company and will be rolled out across the entire group during 2021.

The implementation lays one of the key foundations for the group to reap the benefits of becoming truly digital, and will enable a new level of real-time decision making as well as a more agile and business-led approach to systems and data-driven initiatives, Barrick said in its September quarter results.

“The project stayed on track with a very ambitious timeline despite the obvious challenges presented by the pandemic, with the legacy Newmont sites going live on August 1 and the rest of Nevada Gold Mines on October 1,” the company said.

Back in January, SAP confirmed the gold miner had chosen SAP S/4HANA to future-proof its global business and growth ambitions. SAP calls SAP S/4 HANA a “future-ready enterprise resource planning system with built-in intelligent technologies, including AI, machine learning, and advanced analytics”.

Barrick’s Head of Group Systems Integration, Nico Hoffman, says: “By keeping the global design standardised and focused on getting the basics right, we have set up the rest of the implementations for success and paved the way for them to be completed on time.”

Training adopted a new approach, formulated during Barrick’s strategy sessions earlier this year. This involved identifying particularly talented individuals who were added to a pool of ‘super users’ inside the various business functions.

“These users take up ownership of the system by acting as the first line of support for issues as well as by driving continuous incremental improvement of the core application,” Barrick said. “Almost immediately they began delivering refinements and improvements which will be included in future rollouts.”

Hoffman added: “This project demonstrates the value of having both a very clear end goal and the correct level of executive functional sponsorship on board from the very beginning and we look forward to seeing the results of applying this to future developments.”

The SAP rollout coincides with the start of a number of initiatives including a common global data platform, a new financial reporting and planning system, as well as various operational technology enhancements, rationalisations and unifications, Barrick said. “It also signals the end of siloed local customisations which previously stood in the way of one true global solution.”

COSOL to expand SAP, ERP offering to Ok Tedi Mining

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COSOL is to expand the work it is currently providing Ok Tedi Mining, in Papua New Guinea, with the ASX-listed company set to enhance and optimise the exploitation and efficiencies of its core SAP ERP business systems for the copper-gold miner.

The company is currently providing the miner with special projects work as part of a digital transformation program and support services.

The expanded engagement is valued at approximately A$2.2 million ($1.4 million)/y over two years.

COSOL said: “The expanded engagement builds on the existing support arrangement provided by COSOL for Ok Tedi Mining’s SAP, Ariba, SuccessFactors, core HR and payroll systems.

“In addition to the continued core systems support, COSOL is driving the expanded digital transformation program focusing on digital workspace collaboration and business intelligence.”

A key component of the program will be the sustainment and modernisation of the copper and gold miner’s underlying IT infrastructure to underpin the move to a hybrid cloud platform, COSOL said.

COSOL CEO, Scott McGowan, said: “This expansion of services reinforces COSOL’s engagement approach in being more than simply a technology services provider. While our extensive capability in enterprise asset management generally, and SAP specifically, underpins our operations, it is our understanding of our clients’ business drivers, priorities and the underlying data that supports our clients’ digital transformation.

“Flexibility to adjust to, and provide value in, the dynamic business environments our clients operate continues to be a hallmark of COSOL’s growth and success – both domestically and internationally.”

RPMGlobal provides asset management add-on for SAP users

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RPMGlobal has launched a new version of its dedicated asset lifecycle costing software, AMT, designed to complement SAP’s Intelligent Asset Management offering and solve the plant and maintenance needs of miners.

In this release of AMT, AMT4SAP will be equipped with over 20 logical business connectors into SAP to support any organisations’ SAP work management solution, RPMGlobal said.

AMT4SAP is an add-on to a miner’s existing SAP solution (pictured) designed to complement and enhance asset management decision support through advanced modelling, maintenance cost budgeting, lifecycle management, benchmarking, component life optimisation and overall strategy optimisation, according to the company.

RPMGlobal and SAP have had a partnership agreement in place since 2013 and have already successfully deployed AMT with SAP to many global mining organisations, RPMGlobal says. These deployments include integration between the solutions that automate the transfer of data to amplify the decision-making capabilities of these organisations.

RPMGlobal CEO, Richard Mathews, said AMT4SAP provides a “complementary and connected solution” to SAP’s maintenance planning (PM), reliability analysis and optimisation functions.

“Miners have complex plant and maintenance needs that AMT4SAP can solve through the creation of a truly holistic approach to asset management. The outcome is long-term performance and cost benefits that positively impact the bottom line,” he said.

At the core of RPMGlobal’s AMT solution is a Dynamic Life Cycle Costing (DLCC) engine and inbuilt intelligence engine. The DLCC takes inputs in real-time from various asset management processes and systems such as on-board monitoring systems, fleet management systems, the mine plan and SAP itself.

The calculation engine then automatically reforecasts future usage, availability, productivity, further maintenance costs and future resource requirements, according to RPMGlobal. It does this for every piece of equipment, every part and component for the entire life of each asset in real-time.

Harnessing the DLCC engine, AMT4SAP is able to identify asset lifecycle risks and opportunities to control and reduce maintenance spend, arming end-users with the ability to proactively make decisions.

AMT’s ability to define, track and maintain an asset’s lifecycle cost through the DLCC complements SAP’s work management capabilities across work scheduling, strategy definition, resource levelling, downtime capturing and warranty management.

“The differentiating strength of RPMGlobal’s AMT solution is the ability to rapidly generate and analyse multiple maintenance scenarios and strategies to determine the optimal solutions available to a mining operation,” the company said.

Through modelling multiple scenarios for evaluation of new assets (advanced modelling) and alternate maintenance strategies for assets already in operation (strategy optimisation); optimal long-term plans that impact on costs, availability and resources can be better understood and shared with stakeholders well in advance (long-term planning), it added.

A good example of the two systems complementary functions is AMT’s unique MCB (Maintenance Cost Budgeting) module, RPMGlobal said. Integrating AMT’s live lifecycle costing – which includes factoring in unplanned events not covered in SAP – together with SAP’s work order and master data, AMT4SAP is able to generate a full zero-based maintenance budget in “minutes instead of weeks”, it said.

AMT4SAP assists to ensure all data is structured and ready for analytics solutions, such as SAP Analytics Cloud. “This means users spend less time creating a budget and more time using the analytical tools to better understand the maintenance business and deliver real value,” the company said.

AMT, RPMGlobal says, is used by hundreds of mine sites worldwide as well as all major OEMs to manage their assets and contracts.

ERG adds ARC Advisory and SAP to digital transformation program

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Eurasian Resources Group (ERG) says it has signed letters of intent (LOI) with ARC Advisory Group and SAP for the continuation of its large-scale digital transformation program, grounded in the principles of Industry 4.0.

Jointly with Oner Mind, ARC Advisory Group is to perform an independent technological audit of ERG’s entities in Kazakhstan, which includes power generation, aluminium and ferroalloy assets, and develop an action plan for business process optimisation, ERG said.

Commenting on the signing, Galymzhan Akhmetov, ERG’s Chief Information Officer, said: “ERG’s entities differ by industry and size; that’s why we need a world-class independent audit to maximise the effectiveness of production process management.”

Uwe Grundmann, General Manager of ARC Advisory Group’s European operations, said ERG’s digital transformation would benefit from the business’s knowledge base and experience.

In further support of the group’s ambitious programme, ERG also announced a new area of cooperation with SAP, which will see the implementation of a new system focusing on repair and maintenance management and ensuring equipment reliability.

Serik Shakhazhanov, Chairman of the Management Board at Eurasian Group LLP, which operates ERG’s entities in Kazakhstan, said the partnership would enable the group to enhance its competitive edge and develop the best industry practices of asset management.

The milestone was also welcomed by Eugene Teremov, Managing Director of SAP Kazakhstan, who said the signatories have a shared commitment to innovation.