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Upgraded software packages add value to mining operations

27th September 2013

By: Ilan Solomons

Creamer Media Staff Writer

  

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Enterprise software and service provider Ventyx, subsidiary of power and automation technology group ABB, has, over the past 18 months, introduced enhanced capabilities to its intelligent mining suite, with a particular focus on mine planning, mine-to-market logistics and production accounting.

MineMarket and MineScape are two of Ventyx’s principal mining enterprise solutions.

“We have been assisting our MineScape customers in making the most of their mining data by supplying additional tools for mine design and plotting. We have also released Russian and Mandarin versions of MineScape, which promises to expand our footprint in the Commonwealth of Independent States and China,” Ventyx mining solutions VP George McCullough tells Mining Weekly.

Ventyx’s MineScape is a suite of integrated solutions designed for opencut and underground mining operations in coal and metalliferous deposits. The suite delivers extensive geologic modelling and mine- design functionality.

He highlights that Ventyx’s MineMarket solution provides complete visibility of ore inventory quantity and quality, from the mine to the customer, and has been enhanced significantly, with an improved marketing service, additional physical and financial accounting functionality and credit management.

MineMarket provides access to real-time information on the entire logistics chain. It assists in improving commercial outcomes by charting the impact of sales and provides a current view of available and upcoming supply of saleable product.

“Our production accounting solution has been enhanced with improved delivery processes and configuration tools, which makes it easier and faster to implement,” enthuses McCullough.

Further, he notes Ventyx has introduced a new integration framework, which leverages service-orientated architecture to provide greater interoperability with industry solutions and standards. The company plans to continue with expansions on the framework.

With regard to asset management, the company launched its Asset Health Centre for electric transmission companies in June at its 2013 Ventyx World customer conference, in San Francisco, US.

McCullough explains that the company’s Asset Health Centre gathers disparate sources of information and provides visibility into the health of assets and infrastructure investments, including smart devices.

He says the Asset Health Centre enables the organisation to harness new and existing operations technology for improved operations and financial performance.

“This paves an exciting path for mining asset health, as future releases of the Asset Health Centre will include the function- ality to assist mining companies in proactively managing all their capital assets using condition monitoring and predictive analysis,” McCullough explains.

“Our parent company, ABB, is a recognised leader in process control and automation. The ABB AC 800xA control systems software enables mining customers to automate and control a variety of equipment, such as mills, drives and conveyors, as well as specialised machines, such as stacker reclaimers.”

Ventyx’s integration with ABB is gaining significant momentum, and is translating into joint solutions for its customers.

“For example by integrating the ABB 800xA software and Ventyx MineMarket, we can create a stacker-reclaimer control solution that responds automatically to changes in the product grade, enabling customers to efficiently load their product onto customer vessels,” asserts McCullough.

These system technologies were exhib- ited at the MINExpo, in Las Vegas, US, in September 2012, and will be demonstrated in conjunction with ABB at the Perumin Mining Convention, at the Centro de Convenciones Cerro Juli, in Arequipa, Peru, this month.

“Our innovation partnership programme has, over the past 12 months, focused on giving our key customers the opportunity to work closely with our product and development teams to jointly create innovative solutions for the future,” he states.

McCullough enthuses that the company’s mining solutions cover the entire mining value chain, from drillholes to customer services, and have been in use for mine planning and operations for more than 30 years.

Confronting Challenges

He emphasises that, in general, the mining industry has become more complex over the last few decades, especially in recent times. This is owing to production pressures as a result of resource and skills scarcity, as well as increasing costs and regulatory requirements.

“Mining companies that want to remain competitive must have an efficient value chain, which can constructively respond to market and geological changes, to reduce the impact on production and operational costs,” he states.

McCullough points out that the mining value chain, which includes ore movement and logistics, is largely disjointed. Companies able to respond to the demand for increased productivity and drive-cost efficiencies is, therefore, a major challenge.

Future Focus

McCullough says Ventyx and ABB are focusing on integrating the mining value chain horizontally and vertically.

“We want all the functions in the mining value chain to work as one connected value process so that it can operate efficiently, which demands that it be integrated in terms of process control and automation systems,” he stresses.

Additionally, he states that Ventyx and ABB want to create a connected and controlled value process that is highly visible to managers and executives by integrating it with enterprise business applications such as enterprise resource planning.

“This philosophy is reflected in our software development plans and our product offering,” states McCullough.

He says that, moving forward, Ventyx is focusing intensively on adopting higher standards for information and communication integration, such as ISA-95, for its mining offerings.

Further, Ventyx is aiming to adopt recent technology standards, such as the business to manufacturing markup language standard, which makes integration efforts predictable, easier and more reliable for its customers.

“The company is also leveraging the several standards applicable to intelligence of sensors, such as Process fieldbus, HART, Devicenet and Foundation fieldbus, to integrate health information with maintenance management,” he highlights.

“We are noticing an increasing adoption of wireless networks and ABB has a great wireless offering in the form of its Tropos mesh network, which is widely used in the global mining sector,” McCullough asserts.

The patented Tropos mesh network architecture is fully distributed and controller free. It is self-organising, enabling easy deployment of new networks and easy expansion of existing ones, according to ABB’s website.

It states that the Tropos mesh network architecture is also self-healing, through its automatic restoration switching analysis settings, ensuring the highest levels of network reliability and availability. Its distributed intelligence dynamically selects the optimal end-to-end paths through the network for maximum performance.

Edited by Megan van Wyngaardt
Creamer Media Contributing Editor Online

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