A conveyor health monitoring system designed to enhance asset management, improve reliability and introduce predictive monitoring of conveyor belts is now available in South Africa.

Strata Worldwide has signed a new partnership agreement with Future Fibre Technologies to distribute the company’s FFT Aura IQ conveyor health monitoring system into mining and tunneling operations in South Africa, North America and Australia.

When conveyor belt rollers fail it can cause damage to the assets and significant downtime to the operation. The solution is designed to quickly and safely identify and classify specific early-stage conveyor roller failure modes and symptoms, providing unique and timely information for improved maintenance, increased operational performance and enhanced health and safety risk management. The data can be integrated into onsite reporting and planned maintenance schedules, helping to reduce costs by minimising unplanned maintenance, extending the life cycle of idlers and keeping personnel and operations safe.

“The Aura IQ system was developed in partnership with industry leading research organisation Mining3 over a course of seven years,” says Future Fibre Technologies Group head of innovation Andrew Hames. “It uses the latest in technology and artificial intelligence to replace what is currently a very labour-intensive process. Maintenance staff walk along kilometers of conveyor belt with infrared cameras, handheld audible devices and for visual inspections, looking for subjective indications of failed rollers and then marking each for follow-up. Our technology not only tracks failure progression and flags wear symptoms, failure modes and wear status but also shows you where to find it.”

“We’ve become known for our development of leading-edge underground communication and monitoring networks, and the Aura IQ system is an ideal complement, adding conveyor health monitoring to our advanced technology portfolio,” adds Strata Worldwide CEO Mike Berube.