WA Govt outlines resources priorities with strategic report

The Western Australian Government has released its mineral and petroleum resources development strategy, prioritising six points including regional areas, exploration and streamlined approvals.

The first strategic priority is to cement the state as a leading global destination for exploration investment.

The report stated this will be achieved through the Government’s Exploration Incentive Scheme (EIS) which has generated $31 million in benefits to the State for every $1 million invested in the scheme.

Minister for Mines and Petroleum Bill Johnston said the Government must tend to several issues to encourage further investment.

“Central to this strategy is promoting our comparative advantages and investment opportunities, catering for current and future skills gaps, facilitating access to infrastructure, and investing in research and development,” Johnston said.

Research and development are discussed in the report’s fourth strategic priority: an evolving industry.

The report acknowledges the industry’s shift towards different commodities and parts of the supply chain, such as precious metals refinery.

The report uses Alcoa and South32’s alumina operations, IGO/Tianqi Lithium’s Kwinana facility, and BHP’s Nickel West battery metal supply as examples of the state’s ability to facilitate future-focussed mining and minerals operations.

“We expect demand for WA’s minerals to continue to grow, driven by the global transition to a low-carbon future and an increasing demand for electric vehicles,” Johnston said.

A major push to effectively regulate the industry was also a feature of the report, with multiple strategic priorities relying on the state doing so.

“The State Government recognises that an efficient and effective regulatory framework is essential for providing industry with the certainty required to make investment decisions, and is committed to support measures to streamline regulation while not compromising on environmental and social standards,” the report stated.

The most recent of the Government’s efforts in this area came in the form of Streamline WA which was launched in 2018 to enable easier business across the state.

The report also gave examples of major operations given the go-ahead in recent years.

“The ability of Western Australia’s regulatory system to allow for the expeditious approval of new mining operations has been demonstrated in recent years through the development of mines including IGO Limited’s Nova nickel-copper-cobalt project and Beacon Minerals Limited’s Jaurdi gold project,” the report stated.

Western Australian Premier Mark McGowan said the opportunities were significant for the State’s resources sector and wider economy.

“The opportunity to continue to grow and diversify our resources sector as a significant contributor to global advancements in the digital age, and the shift to reducing greenhouse gas emissions, are immense, and are expected to continue to provide outstanding economic and social benefits to the community well into the future,” McGowan said.

To read the report and learn more about WA’s resources strategy, click here.

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Iron ore stars in June export figures: ABS

Australian exports have been upheld by metalliferous ores in June, with the category showing an 8 per cent increase and a fourth consecutive record month.

Head of International Statistics at the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) Andrew Tomadini said overall exports experienced a similar jump.

“June 2021 recorded a monthly export value above $40 billion. Exports increased 8 per cent to $41.3 billion, with significant increases in metalliferous ores, coal, non-monetary gold and gas,” Tomadini said.

Metalliferous ores made up almost half of Australia’s export value in June at $20.49 billion, with iron ore up 6 per cent to represent most of that figure ($17.55 billion).

Coal saw its highest export value since April 2020, with $555 million making up 15 per cent of the country’s total export value.

The $40 billion total exports easily qualify the record $310 billion predicted for the 2020-21 financial year by the Resources and Energy June Quarterly.

“Supply chains disrupted by China’s informal import restrictions have largely reorganised, albeit with some loss of revenue,” the Quarterly stated.

China received $19.12 billion worth of Australian exports in June 2021, with record iron ore movement providing a strong backbone – up $1 billion (7 per cent on June 2020) to $14.89 billion.

In June, Minister for Resources, Water and Northern Australia Keith Pitt acknowledged the importance of Australia’s resources sector in strengthening the Australian economy.

“These incredible results underline the importance of Australia’s resources sector to the national economy and international markets throughout the COVID-19 downturn,” he said in response to the Quarterly.

“Australia’s energy and resources sector has remained safe and reliable suppliers to domestic and global markets throughout the pandemic, helping to underpin economic growth and overcome the challenging trade conditions of the past year.”

The paradox of India’s infrastructure – Is a lack of physical infrastructure holding India back?

Is a lack of physical infrastructure holding India back? Yes – and no.

While the physical amount of key elements of infrastructure in India benchmark well internationally, the on-the-ground perception for many is that its infrastructure is vastly deficient.

To see if this paradox could be resolved, we studied both the quantity of infrastructure in place and the quality of that stock.

The answer is nuanced.

India needs more infrastructure in some key sectors and better quality in others. Either way, the demand on public and private sector balance sheets to finance the required investments in greenfield projects and upgrading activities will be considerable. So too will be the associated demand for steel – with infrastructure demand expected to increase at an approximate rate of 8%, compound, between 2016 and 2025.

Does India just need more infrastructure?

India’s infrastructure has been much maligned, with descriptions such as ‘insufficient’ freely dispersed by both local experts and international observers. Popular consensus would imply that what the nation has achieved to date, such as halving the country’s poverty rate since the early 1990s¹, has been achieved despite its infrastructure.

On a per-unit land area basis, the volume of India’s transport infrastructure looks respectable. So why is the positive impact of these apparently expansive networks not being felt?

Our research brings a new perspective to the discussion. It is true, India’s infrastructure stock has many gaps. But to fully comprehend the challenge, we must differentiate between quantity shortfalls (i.e. simply not enough stock in place for efficiency’s sake) and lack of quality (i.e. simply not good enough to be internationally competitive).

India’s cumulative road network is 5.5 million kms long, the second largest in the world. That is despite having only the 8th largest land area. The nearest comparable networks are that of the US (6.7 million kms) and China (4.6 million kms). Note that both countries are approximately three times larger than India in terms of land area and have much higher rates of auto penetration. Similarly, India’s railway network is the 4th largest in the world at over 67,000 kms long, with only the US, China, and Russia (five times larger than India in land area) standing ahead of it.

On a per-unit land area basis, the volume of India’s transport infrastructure looks respectable. So why is the positive impact of these apparently expansive networks not being felt?

Why quality counts

The benefits of having an internationally competitive infrastructure base are self-evident. For India, increasing the quality of the integrated international logistics chain, and the quality of the integrated domestic logistics chain, would have two profound benefits. On the domestic chain, an enormous prize awaits in terms of reducing ‘needless’ food waste². This would be of tremendous benefit to the entire population, particularly its economically insecure rural population. Increasing the quality of integrated inward logistics will also support India’s ability to leverage its comparative advantages, allowing domestic resources to flow to their most productive uses. In the specific case of commodities, such as those produced by BHP, India lacks a large, high quality metallurgical coal endowment. Slow and costly logistics from port to mill though act as a constraint on some elements of India’s blast furnace fleet from accessing the best quality raw materials at an internationally competitive delivered price. For India’s steel industry to reach its true potential, competitive access to the best quality seaborne raw materials should play a major part – just as it has done in Japan, South Korea and China.

With that in mind, let’s turn to the quality discussion.

Of India’s total road network is 40% unpaved. The share of expressways in the overall road network is negligible, while national highways are less than 3%. That compares to around 40% in China. Of the highways that do exist, almost 75% are two-lanes wide or less (considering both sides of traffic flow). This drastically reduces not only the amount of traffic the network can handle, but also the ease of traffic movement. The nation’s road network, for its impressive length, is not presently capable of serving as the commercial logistics backbone of the continent-sized mega-market India aspires to be.

We anticipate an approximate 8% per annum compound growth rate for steel use in Indian infrastructure out to 2025.

In railways, the transition from narrow to broad gauge is only just being completed. Almost two thirds of the overall route length consists of single-lines. Less than half of the network is electrified, while large sections of tracks are near end-of-life and require significant maintenance. These factors remain a major drag on the efficiency of the network. The average speed of passenger and goods trains is constrained to 60 kmph and 25 kmph respectively. With the interaction between quality gaps in the road network, and quantity and quality gaps at sea ports, you have a logistics system that is not internationally competitive in terms of domestic commerce, imports or exports.

Once the quality of transport infrastructure is considered, the paradox of globally competitive size of networks coupled with to perceptions of inadequacy, is effectively resolved.

The graphic below details our estimates of the size and distribution of the quality and quantity gaps across the major infrastructure segments, alongside our mid-case view on the development of steel demand across all end-use sector.

We anticipate an approximate 8% per annum compound growth rate for steel use in Indian infrastructure out to 2025.

India’s infrastructure gaps and steel demand

Indian Infrastructure

Infrastructure development: from historical dissonance to contemporary coherence

The contradictions observed in Indian infrastructure are not a coincidence. They are the result of decades of political and bureaucratic incongruence in terms of infrastructure planning and development. A lack of coordination across levels of government allowed for an inefficient combination of project specific planning approaches, isolated project evaluation and top-down execution systems to co-exist. In addition, the complexities of land acquisition, clearances and approvals, project funding, state-federal grey areas, and a politicised infrastructure construction process resulted in significant inflation of cost and timelines. This has created a geographic and industrial distribution of infrastructure that produced pockets of progress (such as the heavy industrial cluster that rose up in Gujarat under then-Chief Minister Modi) sitting side by side with pronounced gaps across other regions, states and sectors.

Reforms to address the underlying causes of these historical issues have been initiated. The Modi-led government, with its pro-development agenda, has sought a more direct approach to planning and development. With planning more centralised, it complements the development of a strategic long-term national vision, taking into account an integrated view across sectors. The ‘Bharatmala’ program for highways and roads, ‘Sagarmala’ for ports and the ‘National Rail Plan 2030’ are three concrete examples.

In parallel, there are efforts to decentralise project execution to improve efficiency. This will include increased outsourcing and greater private sector participation.

These encouraging signs are an excellent start on the path to realising India’s long run economic potential. Realistically of course, it will take some time for these changes in planning and execution methodology to trickle down through India’s elaborate bureaucratic machinery and translate to discernible impacts on the ground. Count us as cautiously optimistic.

1 Based on World Bank data, India’s headcount poverty ratio has declined from 45.3% in 1993 to 21.9% in 2011 (the last available data).
2 http://www.fao.org/save-food/projects/study-fl-india/en/

(https://www.bhp.com/media-and-insights/prospects/2018/07/the-paradox-of-indias-infrastructure)

Drones on Demand: Should You Outsource?

Drone usage on construction jobsites is growing—as is another trend related to drones. Many construction companies are foregoing training their workers on how to operate drones, and as a result, they are outsourcing the task.

DRONE OUTSOURCING OPTIONS

One new example of this comes from DroneDeploy, which recently announced its Drone on Demand solution, which lets customers plan a flight mission using DroneDeploy’s cloud platform and then request a certified professional pilot from DroneBase.

The company will then go to the site, perform the flight, and collect aerial data. After planning a flight and requesting a pilot, photos, maps, and 3D models appear within 72 hours. This enables construction companies to make informed decisions based on the data—without actually having to fly the drone themselves.

As another example, Measure, a drone-as-a-service company, is providing turnkey and toolkit commercial drone solutions to acquire, process, and deliver actionable aerial data to enterprise customers.

Looking even further down the road, perhaps construction companies won’t need to outsource this area of the business at all, rather the drones will fly themselves autonomously. Skydio recently announced a self-flying camera for consumers. A service like this just might be invaluable to the construction industry as well.

Until that time, there are a number of services available for construction companies that want to outsource flying drones on projects.

A REINVENTION OF SALES, PRODUCTION, INVENTORY FORECASTS

Posted May 11, 2018 |

Quarry operations are moving away from messy spreadsheets and rethinking communication, production planning and sales forecasting to save time and improve productivity. One such medium that quarries worldwide are utilising is PlantDemand, a business intelligence tool.

The importance of collaboration and real time information sharing in today’s business climate cannot be overstated. It is even more important for quarry operations that are constantly trying to plan and match production levels to sales volumes.

Plant managers are challenged to maintain optimal quarry cash flow and inventory while preventing plant overbooking and co-ordinating with multiple suppliers for raw materials − all to schedule on-time deliveries that meet customers’ changing orders.

This is especially difficult because sales teams don’t often have insight into what materials are available to be produced and sold, and how a new order will affect production. It’s also challenging managers to produce accurate forecasts and get up-to-date information about the plant capacity and actual sales versus forecast sales.

The PlantDemand app allows plant managers to create summaries and run default and custom reports against actual sales or forecasts.

Modern business intelligence

The latest report by US Market research company Forrester Research predicts that 2018 will see enterprises refocus on leveraging advanced collaboration and communication tools across the enterprise.

It also predicts that in the coming years everyone within an organisation will become a data analyst, with the ability to leverage modern business intelligence (BI) tools to quickly sort, prioritise and visualise targeted information that is directly relevant to that individual’s line of responsibility. The hope is that better visual interfaces and real time reporting will actively support collaboration across operational teams and drive better decision-making at every level inside an organisation.

Not only that, the Millennial generation is expected to represent 50 per cent or more of the overall workforce by the year 2020.2 And collectively, not only are younger generations “digital natives”, meaning they grew up with technology, but they also value it greatly and see it as a differentiator and a “must have” for employers.

Each morning, it is easy to log into PlantDemand – from the office or remotely – to be appraised of the day’s deliveries.

If companies want to hire and retain top talent, they will need to continue to shift towards easy to use cloud-based tools and applications that support productivity and a collaborative environment.

It is out of this BI-focused landscape that Daniel Mekis began to unravel the communication, production and scheduling problems facing many quarries today. As an assistant plant manager in California, he struggled first hand with planning and scheduling of materials at various quarries, and he felt a lack of collaboration was a major part of the problem.

His team tried Outlook, Excel and even Microsoft Access and SharePoint solutions to compile sales information and plan and co-ordinate production.

“Back when I worked as a plant engineer, it was our job to know if we were going to make enough material to meet the demands of our customers,” Mekis said. “Even if you know you’re producing 250,000 tonnes of material throughout the year, the sales quantities change daily, with many orders changing multiple times before they actually ship.

“Other problems we ran into were plant overbooking, the quarry running out of materials, sourcing materials from multiple suppliers, or using incorrect materials. I used to spend at least three hours for each plant per week compiling sales information to build a forecast report – which would show materials demand in different time intervals.”

Real time planning

PlantDemand can colour-code by material in the sales calendar for better organisation and simplified viewing.

Quarries are beginning to take advantage of new collaborative tools that enable teams to move away from solving a problem on an individual island and move towards initiating well informed discussions between the various branches of an operational team.

One new approach that stands out is PlantDemand, an online quarry scheduling tool3, not just for planning and forecasting orders and production, but also for identifying issues and solving them before they come up.

“PlantDemand is a new concept for aggregate operations because it uses collaboration and real time information sharing,” Dennis Schaaf, the director of PlantDemand, said. “It provides a single source of truth to plan sales, production, material needs and inventory forecasts.

PlantDemand’s online calendar is described as:

A scheduler that lets plant managers drill down into scheduling plans.
A “single source of truth” that provides plant foremen, superintendents, engineers, sales and the back office with data on aggregate production, inventory planning and forecasting.
A “live sales calendar” that allows teams to adjust the plant, hours, modes and sales. As changes are reflected immediately, users can see how current production and future orders will be affected and how plant operations teams can solve inventory issues before they occur.

PlantDemand allows plant managers to create summaries and quickly run default and custom pivot-style reports against actual sales or forecasts. Automatic reporting features make it easy for the sales team to quickly enter orders and see exactly how much can be sold on any given day. Plant operators receive reports from inside sales or generate their own reports to see exactly what they need to produce, and how much raw material they need to order from suppliers.

“Most importantly for quarries, they can now forecast exactly what their customers want today and down the line, and they now have a big picture view to help them balance production, inventory and cash flow,” Mekis said. “That just wasn’t possible before because everyone was bogged down with getting the day’s orders out the door and keeping up with changes.”

Smarter scheduling

Ashlee Avila, the inside material sales representative for US aggregate company Granite Construction, was one of the first PlantDemand subscribers. Her department introduced strategic material purchasing by using the app to track how oil is billed for each product, allowing it to save time and vast amounts of money.

When out in the field or talking with customers, she can quickly log into PlantDemand and add notes to each order. This leaves a historical record of changes made, which might include noting last minute cancellations, indicating customers who left mix, changed the ordered tonnage or other variables. She also likes that she can see the sales calendar for the whole month in PlantDemand every morning, and it’s all colour-coded by material for better organisation and simplified viewing.

“Before PlantDemand we used spreadsheets, but they didn’t scale to the level we needed,” Avila said. “We didn’t have a good way to forecast for the month or week and tell our guys what orders were coming.

“Now, I can log in and within a few clicks I can see our sales calendar for the whole month, week or day. I also create a daily dispatch report every afternoon for our plant foreman, as well as a quality control report that tallies all our orders for the next day.

“We save it as a PDF and it’s in a very easy to use format, so we’re all working from the same schedule.”

Avila said PlantDemand’s mobile app is also extremely useful and she likes that she, the sales team and the plant manager can access it anywhere and at any time, with no software or hardware to install.

In fact, she can use her iPhone to make changes to order dates or tonnage needed while she’s in the field talking with customers. Sales also uses the mobile app when they’re with customers, to quickly see if the plant is running the next day and if so, what mix. This saves time calling the office each time a customer has a question.

A balanced cash flow

Using PlantDemand, plant personnel can also create a production schedule, production report and inventory forecast by tying in the live sales calendar with the plant’s production plan.

Users start by entering minimum and maximum desired inventories of each product, taking into account historical data, upcoming sales, volumes and demand.

April Scott, the material inside sales/materials dispatcher for Granite Construction’s Sacramento office, believes PlantDemand’s inventory planning and forecasting tools helps prevent stock run-out, keeps customers happy and maximises cash flow.

Scott said PlantDemand provides added visibility of the schedule and helps keep track of customers and orders. With more than 15 customer orders daily and thousands of tonnes of material in sales, her calendar is very fluid. Previously she had to manage changes manually by hand using an Excel report each day before sending out the daily schedule to the team.

Now she uses PlantDemand’s shared calendar to send out a daily schedule to the sales team, the construction department and billing department. PlantDemand also helps monitor materials inventories and identify issues before they happen.

“Before I’d find potential problems, but it was much harder because my schedule was on a clipboard or in a long-term schedule in Excel, not all in the same place,” Scott said.

“Now PlantDemand looks at how much oil and aggregates are needed for upcoming orders, which helps the plant and oil suppliers prepare. The app also highlights where we’re over our daily tonnages, and helps us prepare for potential overbooked days. That’s huge because we can fix these problems early before our customers even know there would have been an issue.”

Most successful quarries are taking steps to improve how they track and manage sales planning, production, material needs and inventory forecasts. At the crux of more efficient operations is a commitment to expanding visibility across the plant and empowering the entire team with online tools that support information sharing and collaboration.

When teams have the right technology and real time data at their fingertips, quarries can become more competitive and more responsive to customer needs.

Trimble is a software referral program approved member of PlantDemand.

Source: Trimble/PlantDemand

References & further reading

1. Press G. Ten predictions for AI, big data, and analytics in 2018. Forbes, 9 November 2017. forbes.com/sites/gilpress/2017/11/09/10-predictions-for-ai-big-data-and-analytics-in-2018/

2. PwC Global. Workforce of the future: The competing forces shaping 2030. pwc.com/gx/en/services/people-organisation/publications/workforce-of-the-future.html

3. PlantDemand. plantdemand.com/aggregate

OPINION: Digital investments, new business models, digital twins and IoT empower mining companies to leverage industry recovery

After a tough couple of years, the recovery of the mining industry started in 2017, and now is the time to kick it into a higher gear and benefit from being an early mover. Digital investments and new charging models are a couple of the initiatives companies will be pioneering to leverage the industry turnaround in 2018. IoT in combination with digital twins and equipping users to service their own assets are also key trends, predicts Rob Stummer, managing director at IFS Australia and New Zealand.

Industry recovery will boost digital investments

The good news is that the cost cutting and downsizing of the past few years is now at an end, both for the mining companies themselves and their ecosystem of suppliers. Global demand for many commodities is growing. With the macro figures telling us this increase may last for the next few decades, industry players are ramping up their activity. However, many are playing catch-up in the digital space.

When talking to customers and prospects in the industry, I hear the need to tap into digital technologies including cloud, the Internet of Things (IoT), big data, automation, and advanced planning and scheduling to become smarter and more efficient at extracting resources. Part of this is being driven by the downsizing that has taken place over recent years; with fewer staff on site you need to maximise the human resources to hand. Thus, automating manual tasks becomes important.

Mining companies could learn from innovators in related industries, like oil and gas company Songa Offshore. The company has connected IoT sensors to 600 assets on each of their four oil rigs throughout the North Atlantic Basin. The IoT data is fed into the ERP system, IFS Applications, which forms the basis for reducing maintenance costs and increasing productivity by driving operational efficiencies. The main potential optimisation lies in the automation of work orders. If specific data points can trigger automated work orders, this will save significant time and costs.

Other potential investments may come in rolling out beacon technology to improve safety by alerting workers when they are in a restricted zone. Elsewhere, advanced visualisation and planning tools could help contractors speed up the license application process and maximise productivity by being able to better delineate which areas they are already cleared to operate in.

Mining companies will adopt a more service-centric business model

Another key evolution in the industry, driving the push to become faster and more efficient at extraction, involves a change in the way mining companies pay their suppliers and contractors. The traditional “day rate” – the flat-fee rate a contractor is paid per day is increasingly moving to a performance-based system.

Thus, where a mining company might have agreed a contract of $300,000 per day for 100 days, they may offer more or a bonus if the work can be completed in, say, 80 days. This creates new opportunities for those industry suppliers who can become more efficient. Again, the IoT and big data analytics are key enablers here, with sensors able to provide feedback on various environmental and other conditions to maximise productivity. However, technology alone will not produce the desired goals unless organisations can break down traditional siloes between teams which monitor equipment and those focused on other parts of the operation.

These trends can also be seen in terms of the gradual servitisation of the industry, with companies looking to add innovative service and asset management capabilities to their offerings to reduce their maintenance costs. Advanced planning and scheduling technologies in particular will become a game-changer for both mining companies and service providers, helping them better plan and document maintenance without the need to shut down assets as frequently. These are highly sophisticated systems, maximising the human resources on board and incorporating key risk assessments of equipment to ensure any maintenance work is done and recorded according to a strict timetable.

Companies will adopt IoT and digital twins to optimise service levels

The IoT and “digital twin” technologies are poised to have a huge impact on services; reducing costs, maximising data analytics and extending the lifespan of assets. Previously when, for example, a mining truck broke down, the company would have to schedule a service engineer reactively. This approach is highly inefficient as the individual engineer may have little idea what is wrong with the asset, leading to a low first time fix rate.

With IoT sensors, the asset or machine becomes “smart” and is placed at the centre, sending data back to the service centre enabling diagnostics to determine issues that may arise in a day, week or month’s time. It is no surprise that predictive maintenance is where the big benefits are first realised from IoT by asset-intensive companies wanting to optimise their service efforts. The Predictive Maintenance report forecasts a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) for predictive maintenance of 39 per cent over the time frame of 2016–2022, with annual technology spending reaching $US10.96 billion by 2022.

Now let us add in the concept of digital twins, which represents physical objects in the digital world. Previously, the manufacturer’s or engineer’s knowledge of an asset stopped once it was delivered. But now, via the feedback made possible through IoT, you can start to learn the usage, behaviour and performance of these assets in the real world, and even make engineering changes to improve them over time.

This is a hugely important shift that helps complete the feedback loop, leading to smarter asset design, more efficient service and better performing assets. Such an approach is already being applied in the automobile sector, where connected cars send back huge amounts of data to be analysed and used to engineer better machines going forward, as well as alerting when and where faults may start to appear.

The good news is that it can also be applied retrospectively to legacy products. Mining and construction machine manufacturer Caterpillar has plenty of equipment that is 10-20 years old. But it has been able to fit them with smart sensors to measure tyre pressure, temperature, oil levels and so on. It is a win-win for customer and service organisation alike; minimising equipment downtime and enhancing product development and improving service efficiency. The approach is said to have saved Caterpillar millions of dollars already.

Designed by engineers, operated by you: Self-servicing growing by 50 per cent by 2020

We will start seeing a lot more augmented reality (AR) experiences used to put the customer in control of operating or servicing their own assets. Just think of a Nespresso machine, or a Dyson vacuum cleaner. Both companies have invested significant sums in helping consumers – with the aid of their smartphone and a QR code – to access visually overlaid step-by-step instructions on usage and repair. The same kind of model could be applied to more complex systems within a mining environment, providing detailed and highly customised plans for users to work from – without any of the superfluous information usually found in manuals.

This AR vision shares many of the same benefits as the IoT and digital twin approaches listed above. It will help maximise the time of a limited pool of service engineers, but also create a better customer experience. We can’t underestimate the Apple effect here: with AR being built into iOS handsets, it’s only a matter of time before the firm democratises and monetises such capabilities via an intuitive, user-friendly platform. As well as downloading apps and music, think of downloading an AR experience.

How to get there in reality

There is clearly plenty of opportunity to drive better service delivery, but for mining companies to reap the benefits a few things need to happen. It is important not to think of innovative technology as an end goal in itself. First up, make a value-based business case for any new approaches. That might mean wanting to increase first-time fix rates, offer new outcome-based contract types or simply reducing costs by ensuring engineers are only dispatched when strictly necessary.

Once you have established the business case you might need to break down traditional organisational silos between engineering, design and service. An AR experience, for example, is only as good as the engineering data you are able to populate it with. It works two ways, though, as the feedback from product sensors will help engineering teams design and build better assets going forward.

It is much easier to ensure that data flows throughout the organisation if everyone is using the same enterprise system. The last thing you want is new technologies creating their own data silos. New technologies will deliver greater benefits if integrated with your ERP software, and those benefits will be easier to measure. Ideally, you should be able calculate the actual value delivered by new technology, and compare it with your business case, to maximise the value of future investments.

Ultimately, you need the people, processes, data and systems all optimised to capitalise on these emerging approaches and reap the full benefits.

About the author

Rob Stummer is the managing director, Australia and New Zealand for global enterprise applications company IFS. He has held this position for the past nine years, continually achieving significant growth annually in both revenues and EBIT. Rob holds several degrees, including a Masters from Melbourne University. See: www.ifsworld.com/au

Australia tops the world in nine commodities

Federal Government statistics have been released showing that Australia has the world’s largest identified resources in nine major mineral commodities.

The latest Australia’s Identified Mineral Resources(AIMR) report includes assessments of reserves and resources at operating mines and other deposits, evaluations of long-term trends for major commodities, and comparative world rankings for mineral resources.

It shows that Australia’s robust mining industry remains a world leader, keeping the country well placed as an attractive investment destination.

As at December 2016, Australia had the highest Economic Demonstrated Resources in the world for gold, iron ore, lead, nickel, rutile, tantalum, uranium, zinc and zircon. In 2017, Australia had 301 operating mines.

Australia is in the top five in the world as a producer of 20 out of 34 important commodities, including gold, bauxite, iron ore, rare earths, mineral sands, zinc, lead and coal.

“These commodities are essential for maintaining and powering our modern lifestyles and for building a high-tech future,” according to Geoscience Australia.

In 2016, Australia’s mineral exports (excluding petroleum) amounted to a value of more than $151 billion, the report stated.

This was almost 46 per cent of the value of all exported goods and services. In the 2016-17 financial year, mining accounted for 7.4 per cent of Australia’s gross domestic product.

Where are Australia’s major mining projects?

The number of committed mining and energy projects in Australia has increased by 21 per cent over the past year.

A rise in copper, gold, nickel and other minor commodity prospects has lifted the amount of overall committed projects to 47, according to the Department of Industry, Innovation and Science’s latest Resources and Energy Major Projects report.

Publicly announced projects (58), as well as projects moving to the feasibility stage (139), also increased over the past 12 months, in line with higher exploration expenditure and higher resource and energy commodity prices, the report added.

“While the past few years have been characterised by cutting costs to ensure the commercial viability of existing assets, 2017 has seen some renewed optimism for market conditions and increased producer interest in brownfield expansions and new projects,” the report explained.

Australia’s gold sector added several newly committed projects in 2017, including Dacian Gold’s Mt Morgans project in Western Australia, Gascoyne Resources’ Dalgaranga project in WA and Diversified Minerals’ Dargues Reef project in New South Wales.

Two copper projects were also approved — OZ Minerals’ Carrapateena project in South Australia and Capricorn Copper’s Mount Gordon project in Queensland.

Coal, meanwhile, has the highest number of committed projects amongst Australia’s key mining commodities with nine — all of which are in Queensland and NSW.

Location of projects at the committed stage. Source: Department of Industry, Innovation and Science (2017)

2018年移动式破碎、筛分设备

QUARRY’S 2018 GUIDE TO MOBILE CRUSHERS AND SCREENS

This year’s edition of Quarry’s 2018 Guide to Mobile Crushers and Screens lists more than 300 mobile crushers and screens from 17 suppliers to the Australian quarrying market.

Welcome to the 2018 Guide to Mobile Crushers and Screens. This year’s edition is again divided into eight categories (e.g cones, jaws, incline screens, scalpers).

All equipment, irrespective of brand, has been sorted by maximum output (tonnes per hour) to enable readers to compare and contrast the capacities and capabilities of the machines. It’s a comprehensive format that seeks to highlight maximum performance!

This year the guide lists more than 300 mobile crushers and screens from 17 suppliers to the Australian quarrying market.

Some of the brands featured are popular and specialised multinational icons, eg Astec, Kleemann, McCloskey, Metso, Powerscreen, Sandvik and Terex. Other brands boast impressive international credentials but are perhaps lesser known to the Australian market (eg Keestrack, Superior Industries).

In addition, local manufacturers are increasingly developing new specialised equipment for the Australian market including Precisionscreen, Rocktec and Striker.

Buyers should be mindful of multiple distributors for some brands. The Terex Finlay range, for example, is distributed in the Australian Capital Territory, New South Wales, Queensland, South Australia, Tasmania and Victoria by Finlay Crushing & Screening Systems. OPS Screening & Crushing Equipment handles Terex Finlay orders in Western Australia and the Northern Territory.

Therefore, when you are making inquiries about mobile equipment, be sure to contact the right distributor in your State or Territory!

As much as this guide strives to meticulously list all suppliers and brands, some are not featured, either because of obsolete, inaccurate information, or some distributors chose not to participate in the compilation of this book.

Finally, while I recommend you keep this guide close to your desks for easy reference, I encourage you to use it when you’re out of the office too. The beauty of technology today is that this guide is never too far from your fingertips.

When you are on the road, bookmark this page to view this guide on your laptop, smartphone or tablet.

Good luck with your purchases in 2018!

Damian Christie
Editor

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Posted January 01, 2018

Mining data to improve safety and cut maintenance costs

We have over 3,000 machines in our operations, from trucks the size of houses to shovels that move millions of tonnes of material every year. When equipment fails it can put our people at risk, disrupt production, increase costs and reduce our ability to provide resources to customers. So, maintenance is a priority, and we spend US$3.5 billion a year on the upkeep of our plants and equipment.

BHP has created the Maintenance Centre of Excellence to partner with our operations to deliver safe, sustainable improvement in our equipment performance. The Centre leverages BHP’s scale to draw on the deep expertise, data and systems we hold across our business to reduce cost, cut unplanned downtime, improve production and ensure our equipment is safe and reliable for our people.

Over the last 18 months we’ve formed a team of data scientists to examine how we can predict problems and improve the reliability and uptime of our equipment.

The team uses experience from outside the resources industry to find ways to improve our approach. For example, Boeing developed a tool that analyses real time black box data from aircrafts in-flight to predict what maintenance they’ll need when they land. This is used by airlines to prevent cancellations and ensure equipment is in the right place at the right time. We’re developing similar systems to improve BHP’s maintenance.

Our teams have developed algorithms that predict how a piece of equipment is likely to fail and when to best schedule preventative work.

We use over 780,000 different kinds of spare parts and our analysis can better inform how we buy them, preventing delays and unnecessary spending. The team is also working with our operations to determine how they best time routine maintenance to minimise disruption to production.

The results have been impressive. We analysed 5.6 million data points gathered from 20 shovels and identified how preventative maintenance could stop the risk of gantry and structure failures. The team also used data from 300 haul trucks to develop new maintenance strategies, improve supply chain management and set operating limits for how the vehicles are used in the field. This has improved availability and reduced costs by a projected 20 per cent across the remaining life of the fleet.

The number of variables that influence the performance of an individual piece of equipment made it very difficult to do this sort of analysis before these systems were developed. Operator behaviour, weather conditions, machine usage and maintenance history all affect how a truck or shovel performs. Maintenance plans used to be developed on a site-by-site basis. Now we can draw on data from across the company and update them more frequently.

The more data these systems are fed, the more they learn and the better performance becomes. BHP’s combination of large operations and standardised equipment, processes and technology are a critical advantage in the continuous improvement of their forecasts.

Of course, these systems are only as smart as the people that use them. As they become more common they will enable a step change in safety, equipment availability and performance.