Forge - March 2009
The Maptek Advantage
|
Maptek supports Pilbara Iron integration
Maptek is working with Rio Tinto on integration of the Hope Downs South and Brockman 4 sites into their existing Iron Ore operations, rolling out essential technical applications to ensure a consistent approach across the Pilbara Iron business.
Integrating existing applications in this way achieves improved site commissioning, streamlining the acceptance process and minimising uptake time.
Maptek provides Project Management, Business Analysis and Consulting services for Pilbara Iron across a range of applications and functional business areas. The applications have been developed to ensure consistency across sites and the ability to consolidate information. Maptek also delivers application support during and after integration.
Production reporting
A consolidated view of Pilbara Iron’s production information is collated to provide an accurate representation of tonnes and equipment usage in a central repository. The benefits include presenting production figures for confirmation by each site, reconciling the end to end process from mine to port, and passing confirmed results to SAP for reporting to the relevant teams.
Important information relevant to the operation of the plant (tonnage, equipment performance and plant productivity) is captured and reported.
An enquiry and reporting mechanism helps users determine the level of production performance (conformity to plan/forecasts, tonnes blasted/dug, metres drilled, production rates) and equipment activity (usage, utilisation, availability, MTBF and MTTR). As well as providing access to base transaction data including material movement, drilled metres and equipment status changes, it enables users to view and modify in-pit location, grade block data, and plan and forecast targets.
Grade tracking
Grades and tonnage are monitored for building stockpiles and loading trains at the mines, and for managing port stockpiles and ship loading.
An application to process blasts and grade blocks is tightly integrated with Maptek Vulcan™ mine planning software, for assessing which areas are suitable for mining. Another application tracks and reports assay priorities. The well integrated applications allow the business to make timely decisions on stockpile grades and builds.
Maintenance
All sites have various maintenance requirements and different ways of recording this information. The integration project ensures that all systems continue to function efficiently.
For example, track maintenance activity is recorded to help the Track Maintenance group plan future work. A flexible search engine provides details on all forms of technical drawings (electronic and hardcopy) in a central repository. Results of periodical tests to monitor belt condition are entered into a maintenance application. Information such as estimated lifetime and historical data can be viewed.
An interface allows entry of actual train segment times to compare against scheduled times; if a delay is apparent, it can be flagged and an explanation can be entered. For mines, this application is necessary to track train loading delays that affect schedules.
The Rail Operations group can record forces exerted by the rail cars to aid in the detection of abnormal forces. The application contains 3 main components: Maintenance, Standard Reports and Scheduled Jobs.
Reporting
A Royalties Report for Pilbara Blend provides a breakdown of shipment grades, including percentages of ore product which have gone onto various shipments.
Maptek uses Business Objects reporting as it provides a more flexible way of viewing captured data and combining different information sets into consolidated business intelligence reporting. It is then possible to tailor reports for any desired purpose and audience.
| Subscribe to Forge |
|---|