Capital Equipment News May 2019

PREVENTATIVE MAINTENANCE

One important thing to remember with data analytics is that it only truly functions when you have proper telemetry off the equipment.

Sandvik has implemented Analytics, looking at site-specific conditions. The company pulls a wide range of data from the site, not just the telemetry of the equipment. McCoy reiterates that telemetry is very important because it gives you readings from the equipment itself, but there are other factors that also influence the performance of equipment. “This includes your maintenance effort and the actions of the operator on the equipment – this has a marked impact on how the equipment performs and when it could potentially fail. Through our Analytics database, we look at these parameters, we process and provide the predictions in terms of potential failures and overall equipment health,” says McCoy. From an equipment health point of view, Sandvik focuses currently on three core areas, namely engines, transmissions and brake systems, as well as the associated components around these three core areas. “That’s our starting point of data analytics. As our intelligence grows and we gather more information, we will start spreading the focus to other systems on the machines,” says McCoy. McCoy notes that one important thing to remember with data analytics is that it only truly functions when you have proper telemetry off the equipment. By default,

“There is a massive drive for digitalisation in the local market as several mining houses want to jump onto the digital bandwagon. However, many customers still don’t understand what it entails and our job is to guide them to help develop their digital strategies.”

Niel McCoy, business line manager Automation at Sandvik South Africa

process improvement via predictive insights and actionable dashboards.

package is Analytics, the next generation of OptiMine that transforms real- time data into process improvement via predictive insights and actionable dashboards. “Analytics provides insights into equipment health and also predicts potential failures in the short to long term,” explains McCoy. “Sandvik has established a global pool of information from our connected equipment worldwide. We have data collection units on as much equipment as possible worldwide and this creates a pool of information that we can pull from on a global scale. It gives a raw spectrum of information coming out of the equipment,” says McCoy.

Three legs The first leg of Sandvik’s digital offering is connected equipment. This basically utilises telemetry off the equipment, pushing it into the Cloud, and providing basic reporting and insight to the customer. The third leg is the OptiMine process optimisation package, which includes OptiMine Analytics, OptiMine 3D Mine Visualiser, OptiMine Scheduler, OptiMine Task Management, OptiMine Location Tracking and OptiMine Monitoring. A key component of the OptiMine

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