Capital Equipment News May 2019

Telemetry is very important because it gives readings from the equipment itself.

and automation and robotics. Niel McCoy, business line manager Automation at Sandvik Mining and Rock Technology Southern Africa, says the digital revolution from a preventative maintenance perspective is a big talking point globally, and Sandvik has been an industry leader in providing solutions in that regard. “We have been at the forefront of preventative maintenance for many years in the industry. We have had performance maintenance contracts running in South Africa for more than 18 years, but this has always been a manual process. Traditionally we utilised a Computerised Maintenance Management System (CMMS) to do manual predictions and forecasts based on trends and experience of people on site,” says McCoy. He says that process has worked fairly well over the years but the downside is that it never gives you true insights into what’s happening with the equipment. “We have since embarked on a data analytics journey, which is part of our digital offering. We have three legs to our digital strategy, namely connected equipment, autonomous equipment and features, as well as analytics and process optimisation,” says McCoy. A key component of the OptiMine ® package is Analytics, the next generation of OptiMine that transforms data into

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The digital revolution from a preventative maintenance perspective is a big trend globally

Sandvik has three legs to its digital strategy – connected equipment, autonomous equipment and features, as well as analytics and process optimisation

Globally, Sandvik has thousands of connected machines – a mixture of owner-maintained fleets and machines that Sandvik maintains

Sandvik currently has a population of a few hundred connected machines in South Africa

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