Modern Mining June 2020

South Deep Control Centre In the West Rand Goldfields of South Africa, the 3 km deep South Deep Mine has constructed the South Deep Control Centre to “manage and monitor all operations (at its flagship Twin Shafts complex) from a central point. Improving the effectiveness and efficiency of operators through informed deci- sion making,” says Johan Sliep, head of Technical and Production Intelligence Systems for Gold Fields Group Services. “This is where everything inte- grates,” he adds. After one-and-a-half years of construction, the R2,5-million project is nearing completion. In its final state, the state-of-the art control centre will provide overarching visualisation and control over all operations, including production, plant and logis- tics, centrally to deliver on South Deep’s strategic positioning as a highly efficient, safe, low-cost, fully- mechanised world class operation. The capabilities built into the South Deep control centre include mine planning, production schedul- ing, fixed plant management, safety management, production monitoring and control, backfill man- agement, breakdown and planned maintenance management, processing and remote operations and analytics. These systems rely on optic fibre backbone down the shaft and a blend of standard Wi-Fi and proprietary wireless mesh for communication of operational data from various sources. Additionally, an expansive network of leaky feeder supports voice communication over two-way radio in all areas of the vast underground mine.

Sliep reflects that “every technology deploy- ment has a business case associated unless it is a foundational requirement such as (communication) infrastructure, which on its own has a limited busi- ness case value”. As Peter Burman, program manager – Mine Automation at Boliden Mine puts it, “A communica- tion infrastructure is nothing you should try to create a business case upon, that is stupid. A communica- tion infrastructure is imperative to survival in today’s automated underground mines, it is like trying to cre- ate a business case for the sun or the air – it is simply a thing we need (in order) to survive”. Network technologies When it comes to networks for harsh environments, the top five original technology manufacturers (OTMs) on the minds of technology experts would likely be ABB, Cisco, Aruba, NLT and Moxa, in no particular order. Their solutions vary as widely from each other in complexity, ruggedness and cost, as vehicles do from the Rolls Royce, Mercedes-Benz, BMW, Toyota and Renault – again, in no particular order. Australia based Northern Lights Technology (NLT) stands out especially for the plug and play design of its N-Connex network that enables easy main- tainability, rapid deployment and expansion. It has gained notoriety for being particularly blast-proof in deployments that terminate right at the work face. “We are proud to add the Northern Lights Technology connectivity solutions for harsh min- ing and construction environments to our product

Control rooms collect, analyse and relay information necessary to monitor, measure and report performance, as well as controlling processes in mining operations.

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