With iVolve Engineer, Jeremy Callaghan
The unpredictable nature of mining is no longer considered an ‘inevitable’. Utilising the right digital innovations, mining companies have the ability to control aspects of mining that were previously non-controllable.
iVolve's Plant Manager™ is a solution used for the remote monitoring and control of site equipment such as lighting plants and water pumps. It utilises the Nexis wireless router platform to provide fuel level monitoring, engine hour logging, door and boom state detection and reporting of many other practical solutions with actionable outcomes (for a full list of Plant Managers features click here).
Practical Solutions (Water Pump)
The foundation for using data to capture opportunities for growth and improvement is, of course, the recording of relevant information. Inefficiencies can only be eliminated if they are identified in the first place, this requires moving from selective measurements to a full coverage of the production process, whilst at the same time funneling that data back down to specifics for mining personnel.
‘We had so much data you can’t even begin to comprehend. What l tried to do was funnel people different types of data whether that be in the form of a text or an email. Giving small data to the right people and tailoring it to the right people is much more practical for customers,’ said Jeremy.
As with all business solutions, the practicality of the product is essential in ensuring the program fulfills your customers needs and the benefits it provides are fully utilised. iVolve provides simple solutions to the big problems in the mining sector. Rain delays are a huge cost for mining companies.
Plant manager provides the means to track water management on site. Each site has an allowable number of rain days budgeted and staying on top of drainage during the wet season is crucial. A pit floor full of water means no dig activity and is a huge loss of production.
Plant manager tracks the location, fuel level and the engine state of each pump, following the plant along with each SMU pumping towards the dewatering effort.
Actionable Outcomes (Lighting Plant)
Closing the loop from the digital sphere to the ‘real world’ requires some analysis from the data collected by solutions such as Plant Manager to recommendations and actions.
‘l used to print out a map of the site with all the numbers and lighting plants selected and hand it to the service truck driver who would refuel them. Previously the service truck driver was guessing where the plants were, driving to the pit, driving to the dump, pit, dump and comb the site like that over and over. However, if a circuit had moved then maybe the plant had moved aswell, so it was really useful printing out a checklist with all the locations allowing the service truck driver to hit all of them in an optimal amount of time,’ said Jeremy.
iVolve products such as Plant Manager provide practical solutions with actionable outcomes for customers. These technological advances not only enable the translation of the physical into the virtual world, but more importantly facilitate the link back from the virtual to the physical world. For more information on the iVolve solution visit – www.ivolve.com.
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