Capital Equipment News May 2019

it requires equipment to be Controller Area Network (CAN bus) enabled. If equipment doesn’t have CAN bus systems on, you get very limited data in terms of equipment health and performance, and not the full telemetry. “For example, our intelligent 14-t loader produces over 2 000 CAN signals at any given stage, which you can analyse to inform your maintenance effort. Comparably, with a non-intelligent loader, you can only pull off basic engine information and maybe four or five pressure sensors and gauges of the equipment,” says McCoy. Two ways There are two ways in which Sandvik operates when it comes to data analytics. The original equipment manufacturer (OEM) can provide analytic solutions directly to the customer if they wish to purchase the solution. Alternatively, through its performance contracts, Sandvik can utilise the analytics to better its maintenance practices. “We have two ways of approaching it. If the customer has owner-based maintenance, they can purchase the OptiMine software package and through the system they can get all the relevant information that’s necessary to their maintenance effort. Alternatively, we can do it internally,” explains McCoy. McCoy is of the view that data analytics brings a whole new dimension to maintenance in the long run. He says traditionally maintenance has always been hourly-based. The hourly intervals have been set up based on experience in the industry and consultation with component manufacturers. Despite the digital approach to maintenance, McCoy is of the view that in the short to medium term, hourly-based maintenance intervals will not fall away. “There is still need to do some form of preventative maintenance and the hourly-based intervals provide for that. This will remain the basis of maintenance in the short to medium term, and what data analytics does is that it gives you the ability to optimise maintenance efforts,” reasons McCoy. “For example, with data analytics you can see a critical health score on a transmission and then plan immediately to pull the machine off, get the component changed and get the machine up and running as quickly as possible. By doing that, you are preventing a catastrophic failure and also reduce the actual cost of repairs,” says McCoy. He adds that the reasoning behind analytics is to catch failures as soon as they start occurring – that’s the optimal zone where you get the maximum value out of data analytics. Growing interest From a local market perspective, McCoy says there has been massive interest in digitalisation, especially with preventative maintenance in mind. He says there has been a fundamental change in mindset in the past six months by most of the mining houses in southern Africa, and Africa at large. thousands of connected machines – a mixture of owner- maintained fleets and machines that Sandvik maintains. “There is a massive drive for digitalisation in the local market. Most mining houses want to jump onto the digital bandwagon. However, most customers still don’t understand what it entails and our job is to guide them to help develop their digital strategies,” Sandvik currently has a few hundred connected machines in South Africa. Globally, the OEM has

says McCoy. McCoy says the benefits of data analytics abound. He says that the first and most important one is having full visibility of the fleet. In the past it was difficult to pull information out of the CMMS system and analyse it. It was basically reliant on having a good planner, or maintenance person with extremely good skills to analyse all the data. “Now, given the tools you have upfront, you have full visualisation. Depending on how good the network is, you can have close to real time visibility of equipment. That’s the number one benefit for me,” says McCoy. The second benefit of data analytics when it comes to maintenance, according to McCoy, is that you now have a direct impact on the maintenance effort. “You can coordinate your maintenance effort so much better. When we talk about the maintenance effort, we are not just referring to the swinging of physical spanners, we are talking about the whole process behind it, from planning to ordering of parts and getting the machine back up and running,” he says. “The whole value chain is affected by having this data and managing it effectively. Ultimately, the data starts linking up into your resource planning and this can be added into the whole logistics planning.” McCoy speaks of two important case studies where data analytics has made a big impact when it comes to preventative maintenance – Barminco in Australia and Finsch diamond mine in South Africa. These are the two trial implementation sites for Sandvik’s analytic product. “We have recorded some massive success at the two sites thus far,” concludes McCoy. b

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