“A focus on equipment performance promises to unlock billions of Rands in productivity returns for miners.”
“The implications for improving productivity in the South African mining sector are clear. Companies serious about both cost control and productivity need to have a greater focus on the efficiency of their equipment. This means stepping beyond short term cost reduction initiatives and a preoccupation with extra tonnes leaving the mines”
The above is an extract from PWC’s annual mining review, now in its 7th edition, and is in line with the view we have at GEOTAB Africa in terms of our design of value propositions specifically for the mining industry.
Within this report PWC indicates the decline of productivity within the open-cut environment in fact declined by 20% over 7 years, this whilst input costs continued to increase, this is so unnecessary in our technology environment today, whilst solutions such as the GEOTAB offering is available, these solutions aimed directly at increasing productivity within the mining industry, measurable and manageable increases, in real-time.
GEOTAB’s offering is based on “inside the gate” and “outside the gate” structure, referring to on-site on the mine, and from there outside the mine.
Inside the Gate
We equip all equipment on the mine with a relative low-cost data collection device and then activate our industry leading software based on our “Source to Destination” solution, effectively allowing productivity managers to measure and manage the type of ore being mined, the productivity indicators of the machinery involved in ore extraction, the volumes being collected by dump trucks, the trip visualization of the dump trucks from source right through to the destination dump site, all classified according to the type of ore levels.
The above effectively means that mine productivity managers can see in real-time what ore is being mined, the volumes at any given time in the chain, the chain performance itself, the equipment status such as drilling, dragging, travelling, dumping etc, and also when machinery is not productive due to breakdown, maintenance schedules and others, all against their productivity targets required.
Similarly the status of equipment will show the number of hours of the different machines, in order to project and book maintenance schedules, equipment protection indicators such as oil levels and temperatures as well as safety parameters such as speeding, harsh acceleration, harsh braking, harsh cornering etc.
Due to the fact that Driver ID forms part of the solution, management can extract safety and productivity reports based at equipment and employee resource level, against the type of ore as well as across different sites, and to further add value this can be monitored from anywhere in the world, thus you can sit in your office in Johannesburg and see exactly how your sites are performing in various other parts of the world, in real-time.
The visualization of the solution adds the extra dynamic that management on site can in real-time identify bottlenecks and divert and manage resources on the fly, no need as an example to have dump trucks arriving at excavators where no ore is being mined due to breakdown as an example, immediate alerts of non-production by any machine for whatever reason, and diversion of resources to higher grade ore where required.
The net effect is greater productivity from human and equipment resources, real-time pro-active management of resources, greater accuracy of reporting on productivity levels, more efficient right sizing of fleet/equipment required and ultimately management by measurement, utilizing benchmarks based on best practices in terms of comparable data capturing by the GEOTAB system.
Outside the Gate
Part of the chain involves the transport of ore to its destination by road and rail to port, and GEOTAB’s Mining Transport Solution allows the monitoring of loads collected, delivered, time at various points, delays if any and to ensure safety is maintained we also measure speeding violations and risky dangerous driving of the chain from mine to end destination.
The Commercials
GEOTAB structures its deals according to requirement from customers, based on customer strategy of CAPEX, OPEX, Cash-Flow, Balance Sheets, and similarly we have unique solutions to bill in various currencies, hence customer can be billed in South Africa in South African Rand’s for its operations outside of South Africa to protect customer from exchange rate volatility’s.
GEOTAB also offers a “mothball” and “production suspended” pricing option, during times when equipment may not be utilized and therefore not revenue generating, aimed to support our customers during tougher times at their various sites.
Contact us at info@geotabafrica.com and let our consultants present our different solutions to you, you are bound to save significantly against current systems on the market that requires significant physical equipment, high annual licensing and maintenance costs, use of spares and other related costs in maintaining these solutions, whilst at the same time increasing your productivity.
Case studies and references on the solution is available and if you have any doubts GEOTAB will implement a Proof of Concept at any of your sites.
Author: Frans Joubert (MD GEOTAB Africa)
