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Invensys Protocol Magazine - Issue 12, November/December 2012. When we talk about the “supply chain”, we normally talk about manufacturers, their suppliers and their customers. But metals and mining, like farming or oil production, is at the very start of a large number of supply chains. This can be a good or bad thing. It’s a good thing because if one manufacturing industry slows down (e.g. automotive), others may continue unaffected by market conditions. It’s a bad thing because conversely, slow-down in any industry that uses metals as raw material for its wealthcreating processes (of which there are many – e.g. construction) will affect the metals and mining industry.
Citation preview
NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2012
EVENTS | TECH TIPS | TRAINING | SUPPORT
Metals & MiningMetals & MiningOne tough industry
SA mining industry in perspective
Challenges and solutions
Mining for operational excellence
Wonderware solutions at work
IT in industry? It’s about time!
Remote Operations Centres in mining
And what about workforce contribution to real-time pro� tability?
011 510 0340 | [email protected] | www.advansys.co.za
▪ Process analysis and
performance optimisation
▪ Control system design,
specification and project
management
▪ Instrumentation
specification and installation
▪ PLC solutions
▪ SCADA / HMI solutions
▪ S88 Batch solutions
▪ S95 MES and “vertical”
integration solutions
▪ Reporting solutions
▪ Manufacturing Intelligence
solutions
▪ Software Applications
solutions
Advansys provides
specialised Industrial
Control and Automation
Engineering and
Consulting services to
the manufacturing and
utilities sectors throughout
Southern Africa.
Our services include:
Award winning innovation in HMI / SCADA Implementation
upgrade to advansys
Advansys invites you to contact us for Wonderware related
project initiatives and software licensing as follows:
1. HMI / SCADA Standards Design
and Development
2. ArchestrA System Platform Implementations
3. Production / KPI Reporting Solutions
4. Wonderware Licensing
5. Wonderware aligned Customer First Support
package with your annual renewal
InnovatIon award 2009 / BESt EMI aPPLICatIon 2009
toP SI award 2010 / BESt HMI aPPLICatIon 2010 /
toP SI award 2011
Advansys invites you to contact us for Wonderware related Advansys invites you to contact us for Wonderware related
project initiatives and software licensing as follows:
Advansys invites you to contact us for Wonderware related
project initiatives and software licensing as follows:
November/December 2012 | 1
Facebook: Wonderware Southern AfricaTwitter: WonderwareSAYouTube: WonderwareSA
www.protocolmag.co.za
Protocol MagazineOwner and Publisher: Invensys Operations Management Southern Africa
Marketing Manager: Jaco Markwat [email protected]
Editor: Denis du Buisson, GMT [email protected]
Advertising Sales: Heather Simpkins, The Marketing [email protected]
Distribution:Nikita Wagner [email protected]
ContributorsMany thanks to the following for their contributions to this issue of the magazine:
Contents2 Editor’s notes
3 The South African mining
industry in perspective
8Wonderware solutions in the
Metals and Mining industry
11Some of the challenges facing
the Metals and Mining industry in
South Africa
15Applying best-practice IT and
other principles to industry
19Remote Operations Centres in
mining
22Driving real-time profi tability
across mining enterprises
24Real-time operations
management in the metals,
minerals and mining industry
26Mining for operational
excellence
34Dynamic Performance
Measurement (DPM)
36Performance excellence for the
mining and minerals industry with
ArchestrA Workfl ow Software
40Wonderware solutions at work in
the SA Metals and Mining industry
41 Information is a diamond mine’s
best friend at Debswana
45“Proof of the pudding” in action
at SA’s newest iron ore mine
50Invensys Wonderware’s ArchestrA
helps SIs encapsulate and market IP
5358 thin clients replace stand-
alone PCs at RBCT with help
from Wonderware
56Keeping the networks in check
at Lonmin
59The cost of operating outside
baseline in mining
61Metals, Minerals and Mining
dictionary
63 Events: X-CHANGE 2013
68 Invensys Sentinel Services
70 Customer FIRST
712013 Training Schedule
(Johannesburg)
72Use Protocol Magazine to
generate business opportunities
74 On the lighter side
76 Protocol crossword #56
• Lorraine Kearney of SouthAfrica.info for the article on the South African mining industry
• Mike le Plastrier of Invensys Operations Management Southern Africa for the article on applying best-practice IT and other principles to industry
• Bob Cook, Serena Lang and Peter G. Martin of Invensys Operations Management for the article on driving real-time profi tability across mining enterprises
• Russell Barr and Robert E Cook of Invensys Systems Inc. for the article on mining for operational excellence
• Dr. Kobus van der Merwe of Industrial Management Enhancement for the article on operating outside baseline in mining
NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2012
Contents
2 | www.protocolmag.co.za
Editor’s Notes
Metals and Mining – one tough industry
When we talk about the “supply chain”,
we normally talk about manufacturers, their
suppliers and their customers. But metals
and mining, like farming or oil production, is
at the very start of a large number of supply
chains. This can be a good or bad thing. It’s
a good thing because if one manufacturing
industry slows down (e.g. automotive),
others may continue unaffected by market
conditions. It’s a bad thing because
conversely, slow-down in any industry that
uses metals as raw material for its wealth-
creating processes (of which there are many
– e.g. construction) will affect the metals and
mining industry.
In addition, mining is a capital and labour
intensive activity fraught with hazards
and dangers while metal refi ning relies
on complex processes which, if not done
exactly right, can make the difference
between profi t and loss. And then there’s
the pegging of metal and mineral prices by
world markets which means that any increase
in profi tability has to come from improved
effi ciency.
So why on Earth would anyone choose to
start a business in this industry? Figure 1 may
provide a clue.
Mineral sales keep on rocketing in spite
(or perhaps because?) of a reduction in
production (fi gure 2). The reason for this
is probably because, irrespective of what
happens and market conditions, the world
needs metals and minerals and always will.
Substitutes may be found for petroleum but
there’s no viable substitute for iron, gold,
platinum or any of the other fundamental
minerals this industry produces.
The total world dependence on this industry
and huge potential revenues are some of
the very good reasons for getting into this
business
So, if South African production can be
improved, it’s staggering to think what
our metals, minerals and mining industry
could achieve.
We’re not just sitting on a gold mine. We’re
sitting on a golden opportunity.
Until next time,
Denis du Buisson
Figure 1
Figure 2
November/December 2012 | 3
ASSMANG’s Khumani iron ore mine
The South African mining industry in perspective
By Lorraine Kearney, SouthAfrica.info reporter - August 2012
Mining and minerals in South Africa
South Africa is a world leader in mining.
The country is famous for its abundance
of mineral resources, accounting for a
significant proportion of world production
and reserves, and South African mining
companies are key players in the global
industry.
Mineral wealth
South Africa’s total reserves remain some of
the world’s most valuable, with an estimated
worth of R20.3-trillion ($2.5-trillion). Overall,
the country is estimated to have the world’s
fifth-largest mining sector in terms of GDP
value.
It has the world’s largest reserves of
manganese and platinum group metals
(PGMs), according to the US Geological
Survey and among the largest reserves of
gold, diamonds, chromite ore and vanadium.
With South Africa’s economy built on gold
and diamond mining, the sector is an
important foreign exchange earner, with
gold accounting for more than one-third
of exports. In 2009, the country’s diamond
industry was the fourth largest in the world.
South Africa is also a major producer of coal,
manganese and chrome.
There is considerable potential for the
discovery of other world-class deposits in
areas yet to be exhaustively explored. South
Africa’s prolific mineral reserves include
precious metals and minerals, energy
minerals, non-ferrous metals and minerals,
ferrous minerals, and industrial minerals.
Given its history and mineral wealth, it
is no surprise that the country’s mining
companies are key players in the global
industry. Its strengths include a high level
of technical and production expertise, and
comprehensive research and development
activities.
World-class primary processing facilities
work with carbon steel, stainless steel,
aluminium, gold and platinum. South Africa
is also a world leader of new technologies,
such as a ground-breaking process that
converts low-grade superfine iron ore into
high- quality iron units.
Contribution to the economy
With the growth of South Africa’s secondary
and tertiary industries, the relative
contribution of mining to South Africa’s
gross domestic product (GDP) has declined
over the past 10 to 20 years.
The South African mining industry in perspective
4 | www.protocolmag.co.za
Nonetheless, the industry is continually
adapting to changing local and international
world conditions, and remains a cornerstone
of the economy, making a significant
contribution to economic activity, job creation
and foreign exchange earnings. Mining and
its related industries are critical to South
Africa’s socio-economic development.
The sector accounts for roughly one-third
of the market capitalisation of the JSE, and
continues to act as a magnet for foreign
investment in the country.
Mining, according to the Chamber of Mines:
• Creates one million jobs (500 000 direct
and 500 000 indirect).
• Accounts for about 18% of GDP (8.6%
direct, 10% indirect and induced).
• Is a critical earner of foreign exchange at
more than 50%.
• Accounts for 20% of investment (12%
direct).
• Attracts significant foreign savings (R1.9-
trillion or 43% of value of JSE).
• Accounts for 13.2% of corporate tax
receipts (R17-billion in 2010) and R6-billion
in royalties.
• Accounts for R441-billion in expenditures,
R407-billion spent locally.
• Accounts for R78-billion spent in wages
and salaries.
• Accounts for 50% of volume of Transnet’s
rail and ports.
• Accounts for 94% of electricity generation
via coal power plants.
• Takes 15% of electricity demand.
• Supplies coal for about 37% of the
country’s liquid fuels.
The chamber says total mining expenditure
in 2010 was R441-billion, of which:
• R228.4-billion was spent on purchases and
operating costs (timber, steel, explosives,
electricity, transport, uniforms, etc.
• R78.4-billion went on salaries and wages
for mine employees.
• R49-billion on Capex (the lifeblood of
mining).
• R17.1-billion in tax.
• R16.2-billion in dividends (only 3.7% of
total).
• R38-billion on depreciation and
impairments.
• R13-billion on interest to the banks.
Of this, R409-billion (92%) was spent locally,
and the spending multipliers created as
much economic value and jobs as the direct
mining sector contributed. In addition, the
listed mining companies represent more
than 30% of the market capitalisation of the
Johannesburg Stock Exchange.
There are other contributions to the
economy: extraction-related industries are
a key driver of the Johannesburg Stock
Exchange, representing 42%, or R1.9-trillion,
of its value. Mining also provides the
feedstock for about 94% of the country’s
electricity generating capacity.
The value of total sales increased by 24.8%
to R302.2-billion ($37-billion) in 2010, and the
three top-selling minerals – PGMs, coal and
gold – accounted for 66.3% of total mineral
sales.
South Africa’s mineral reserves are well-
mapped, but despite having the world’s
largest in-situ value of mineral resources,
the country only accounts for 3% of total
greenfield mining projects planned for the
next decade.
Beneficiation and other policies
In the 2011/12 Fraser Institute Survey, South
Africa was ranked 54th out of 93 countries
and provinces (from 67th out of 79 the year
before). The Fraser Institute, a leading
Canadian think tank, measures the policy
attractiveness of mining destinations by
polling mining company executives.
Lucrative opportunities exist for downstream
processing and adding value locally to iron,
carbon steel, stainless steel, aluminium,
PGMs and gold. A wide range of materials
is available for jewellery, other than gold,
platinum and diamonds; there is also tiger’s
eye and many other semiprecious stones.
For this purpose, the government has
developed a minerals beneficiation strategy
as a key area for potential growth. It is
planned to transform the industry from
being largely resource-based to knowledge-
based. Downstream activities are already
well-developed, and downstream products
from the industry used locally include
cement, steel, liquid fuels, electricity,
polymers and plastics, with an estimated
total sales value of R200 billion ($24.6 billion).
South Africa’s beneficiation strategy
compliments other government
programmes, and the mining industry value
chain has been prioritised as an economic
growth node in the New Growth Path, which
highlights a path for the industry out of its
depression until 2020.
The Mining Industry Growth Development
and Employment Task Team (Migdett) was
established at the height of the global
financial crisis in 2008, with stakeholders from
the government, industry and labour. They
committed to achieve two critical outcomes:
• To help the industry manage the negative
effects of the global economic crisis and
to save jobs; and
• To position the industry for growth
and transformation in the medium to
long term.
An arc furnace in action
November/December 2012 | 5
Black economic empowerment
By the end of 2011, South Africa’s mining
industry was the largest contributor of
economic transformation, with broad-based
black economic empowerment (BBBEE)
deals worth R150-billion completed. Black
economic empowerment targets apply to all
companies in the country, meaning a certain
percentage of local assets must be sold to
black South Africans.
But with black ownership of the mining
sector at 8.9% in 2009 – well below the
target of 15% by 2007 – the government
is putting significant pressure on mines to
reach the next target of 26% by 2014.
Nationalisation
The nationalisation debate holds sway over
the industry and investment in it, despite
the government and the ruling African
National Congress repeatedly stating that
nationalisation of mines is not policy. The
party’s Youth League and other groups have
called for mines to be nationalised, and
there are ongoing debates about licences,
royalties and ownership.
In August 2012, President Jacob Zuma
told a meeting of diplomats that South
Africa had rejected the proposal of a
blanket nationalisation of mine, and would
instead focus on proposals that sought to
ensure the country benefitted more from
mining without disrupting the sector. State
involvement could take the form of part
ownership or full ownership of mines for
selected minerals to help drive development
programmes.
There is also a proposal for a tax on windfall
profits on mining. Zuma said this would help
facilitate economic growth and employment
creation. A final policy is expected to be
adopted for implementation in December.
Junior sector and small-scale mining
The junior mining sector in South Africa
was born of new legislation in the form
of the Mining and Petroleum Resources
Development Act of 2006. The law enforced
a “use it or lose it” principle, stipulating that
Overview of ASSMANG’s Black Rock manganese beneficiation plant.
mining rights not used by mining companies
to exploit minerals in the ground would
revert back to the state.
Unused mining rights held by mining
groups, but not used for years, were
awarded to newly established junior
companies that showed themselves to be
true mining entrepreneurs.
The Nedbank South African Junior Mining
and Exploration Index, established in
September 2006, provides a measure of
performance of all the South African-
listed junior mining and exploration
stocks, excluding oil and gas. To meet
investor demand for a tradeable entry
into these shares, a derivative version of
this index was launched a few months
later. The Nedbank South African
Junior Mining & Exploration Index
Excluding Dual Listed Shares (NSJMEX)
was constructed mainly to satisfy forex
regulations of the Reserve Bank regarding
constraints on inward dual listed shares
and derivative products.
Listings from all the JSE’s boards qualify, but
The South African mining industry in perspective
6 | www.protocolmag.co.za
Top40 Index constituents (or similar-sized
stocks) and companies controlled by other JSE-
listed companies, are excluded. The index was
designed as a performance benchmark and,
because of low liquidity, it is not recommended
for use as an investable product.
The Department of Mineral Resources believes
small-scale mining has an important role to
play in community upliftment, job creation
and poverty alleviation. It is developing a
new approach to maximise the impact of
small-scale mining, with particular focus on
poverty nodal points with mining potential,
intended to contribute meaningfully towards
the livelihood of these communities.
There are many challenges, however,
such as a lack of access to finance
and markets, shortage of skills and
Richard’s Bay Coal Terminal
inadequate or non-compliance with
regulatory requirements.
Historically, small-scale mining has
comprised mainly alluvial diamond and
in-land salt mining, but more recently the
bulk of the demand for small-scale mining
ventures has been associated with industrial
commodities, such as slate, sand, clay,
sandstone, dolerite and granites for the
production of infrastructural development
products such as tiles, clay and cement
bricks as well as aggregates.
These activities should not be confused
with illegal mining, which is mining in the
absence of land rights, mining licence,
exploration or mineral transportation permit
or of any document that could legitimise the
on-going operations. Illegal mining by single
individuals or groups in abandoned mines is
an ongoing hazard.
Environmentally responsible
Through the implementation of more
stringent regulations, South Africa’s mining
industry has become safer as well as more
socially and environmentally conscious.
Companies are required to allow for
environmental trust funds and rehabilitation
of disturbed land. There is also a R70-million
project in place to solve the legacy problem
of acid mine drainage.
Sources:
• Chamber of Mines
• Statistics South Africa
• South African Yearbook
• Department of Mineral Resources
• Department of Trade and Industry
• South African Investors Handbook
• BuaNews
• Oxford Business Group
Read more at: http://www.southafrica.
info/business/economy/sectors/mining.
htm#ixzz25mGhTYax
November/December 2012 | 7
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© Copyright 2012. All rights reserved. Invensys, the Invensys logo, Avantis, Eurotherm, Foxboro, IMServ, InFusion, Skelta, SimSci-Esscor, Triconex and Wonderware are trademarks of Invensys plc, its subsidiaries or affiliates. All other brands and product names may be trademarks of their respective owners.
Facility Management • Environment • Power • Smart Cities • Transportation • Waste • Water & Wastewater
8 | www.protocolmag.co.za
Wonderware solutions in the Metals and Mining industry
November/December 2012 | 9
Introduction
The mining and refi ning industry spans
a wide variety of applications and
environments. As such, its process control
and production information delivery systems
need to have special attributes that include
coping with geographically distributed
situations and rugged environments
while integrating diverse and disparate
technologies that have been adopted over
possibly decades.
Mining companies that are contemplating
adopting today’s industrial automation and
information technologies are concerned
about preserving these past investments
while operating in a challenging present and
being wary of uncertain future global market
trends.
As if this weren’t enough, these companies
also depend on a large labour force as well
as extremely costly and capital-intensive
plants. So when it comes to industrial
automation and information solutions, these
had better be true solutions rather than
another layer of challenges
The benefi t of Wonderware solutions from Invensys Operations Management
Innovative solutions and global reach
With over 1,900 sites and 24,000 licences
installed across the global metals and
mining industry, many of the world’s leading
companies depend on Wonderware
solutions for their industrial and
manufacturing needs. This is especially true
in Southern Africa where the great majority
of mining companies use Wonderware
products ranging from SCADA / HMI and
MES to EMI and Enterprise Integration.
As the fi rst major HMI software offering to
begin running on Microsoft Windows more
than 20 years ago, Invensys’ Wonderware
brand has been synonymous with continuous
innovation and ease of use. Over this long
history, the ARC Advisory Group’s HMI
software and services study has consistently
listed the Wonderware brand as one of the
top market share leaders. In the 2011 ARC
report, which covers the 2010 calendar year,
Invensys Operations Management outpaced
Wonderware solutions in the Metals and Mining industry
10 | www.protocolmag.co.za
market growth to gain the #1 position in
market share, increasing its percentage lead
over its nearest competitor.
Wonderware has always pioneered solutions
most wanted and needed by industrial
automation engineers. From InTouch 1.0
in 1990 to ArchestrA technology in 2003
and today’s virtualisation-ready solutions,
Wonderware has always stayed ahead of the
pack. Today, Wonderware’s extensive range
of integrated industrial IT solutions conform
to and facilitate the use of international
standards so that you never get stuck
with proprietary solutions that can’t be
maintained beyond the longevity of their
creators.
This is an important point because mining
companies distinguish themselves through
their ability to remain profitable in a
highly competitive global industry. They
thrive because they are all unique in their
approaches to wealth creation. It stands to
reason, therefore, that “one size of industrial
IT solution doesn’t fit all” – especially at the
production level. So how does one develop
enterprise information and control solutions
that are unique to each company without the
stigma of “bespoke solutions” that smack
of dead-end, proprietary software that is
a nightmare to support and expensive to
maintain?
A solid foundation
It can be done with an infrastructure that must
encourage and actually enforce the use of
company, industry and international standards.
This means that bespoke development and
customisation becomes an open exercise
where anyone with the required intellectual
property can contribute application
knowledge and where disparate solutions
from a variety of suppliers (even hardware) can
coexist in harmony and have a future.
This is the domain of Wonderware’s System
Platform based on ArchestrA technology as
are all of Wonderware’s products. We don’t
pretend to have all the solutions needed
for your mining company but we most
definitely have the key functionality you
require underpinned by the most advanced
object-oriented industrial Service Oriented
Architecture (SOA) technology that will allow
you or your system integrator to optimise
processes and to customise systems to meet
your exact and evolving real-time decision
support needs.
Expert support
Wonderware’s innovative and proven
technology is backed by a training and
support organisation that ensures customers
get the most from their investments. In
2012, Wonderware Southern Africa won
the prestigious Distinguished Distributor
Award for the Europe Russia and Africa
(EURA) region for achieving some notable
milestones including:
• Highest percentage of customers in the
EURA region registered on Invensys’
Customer First programme - a multi-
level software maintenance and support
initiative to help customers get maximum
value from their Invensys Wonderware
software solutions.
• Highest Customer First renewal rate (88%).
• Highest customer satisfaction index.
• High degree of self-sufficiency and local
expertise with less than 5% of support
cases escalated to Invensys Level 2
support.
• Highest proportion of certified support
engineers that have passed an average
of 5 Certified Solution Provider
examinations.
The addition of Invensys Sentinel
Services has ensured the constant (24/7)
remote monitoring of the performance
of Wonderware software assets and the
hardware on which they run. This proactive
approach helps to detect threatening
trends and to fix issues before they affect
production.
Large and knowledgeable system integrator network
Wonderware Southern Africa’s customers are
system integrators or end-users who have the
technical expertise to implement their own
solutions. We are fortunate to be associated
with a large group of system integrators who
are true experts in the metals and mining
industry and who are responsible for some
world-leading implementations in Southern
and sub-Saharan Africa. If you don’t want
to implement your own systems or software
solutions, we’ll make sure you’re in good
hands.
November/December 2012 | 11
Some of the challenges facing the Metals and Mining industry in South Africa
Health and safety
Intelligent information
One of the major contributors to health and
safety is accurate real-time information on
tap anywhere throughout the mine. This
information needs to be available 100% of
the time irrespective of power failures, server
malfunctions or network failures. Whether
it’s alarm, machinery or process status
information, it needs to be available instantly
by a wide variety of users. Intelligent
alarming coupled to telecommunications
facilities or widely-distributed low-cost
compact panel computers are alternative
ways of ensuring that the right people get
the right message at the right time. Portable
computers and smart phones also allow for
the monitoring of real-time activities and
the entry of observations while on the move.
Other contributors to health and safety are
the centralisation of operations irrespective
of the diversity of disparate systems in use
at the mine.
Event resolution
Whether it’s a safety emergency or a
production stoppage, the right personnel
must know what to do without hesitation
because this is not the time for trial
and error. This makes human workflow
mapping and management mandatory,
especially in cases of staff changes.
Workflow management provides the
degree of escalation and the definition
of responsibility and actions necessary
for the rapid resolution of abnormal
events.
Minimising production costs
With resource prices fi xed on the open
market, the only way to increase turnover
is to increase mining volumes and the only
way to increase profi tability is to reduce
costs in the face of increasing raw material
and energy costs. In other words, the way to
create shareholder value is to mine effi ciently
and improve product quality – the important
factors for customers looking to differentiate
suppliers from one another (the ability
to supply speciality steels is yet another
differentiator and highlights the supplier’s
fl exibility in meeting market demands).
Mining is an extremely expensive business
that relies on the optimisation of all
production processes for a healthy bottom
line. Minimising production costs includes:
Process optimisation
Heavy plant such as ROM Mills need to be
optimised since their output largely defi nes
the effi ciency of downstream processes.
These plants are also large consumers
of electricity. Getting it right is often a
tricky business that requires the use of
Advanced Process Control and Statistical
Process Control (SPC) algorithms that can
be adjusted on-line for optimum results.
Continuous and incremental process
improvement is one of the keys for sustained
competitiveness.
Some of the challenges facing the Metals and Mining industry in South Africa
12 | www.protocolmag.co.za
A dilemma facing production engineers is
that more tonnage may mean lower quality
(or poor grind), which increases mining
recovery costs. On the other hand, lower
tonnage and a good quality grind means
lost processing time and lower revenue
for the mine. Another issue that must be
accounted for is that quantity and quality
are usually inversely related. Attempting to
increase or improve on one is often at the
expense of the other.
Obviously, it is desirable to operate a
process as close as possible to the point of
maximum profit for as long as possible but
this is not always easy to achieve, especially
when the “optimum” point is variable or
changes occur in parameters outside the
plant operation leading to a shift in the
“optimum” operating point.
These mission-critical juggling tricks can’t
be performed without human knowledge
and expert systems as well as effective
and dynamic real-time information tools
designed to cope with change.
Improved capital plant ROI
Mining machinery such as refrigeration
plants, conveyors, diggers, trucks, etc. is
costly and its life needs to be extended
as long as possible. This can be achieved
through the rigorous, real-time monitoring
of downtime and Overall Equipment
Effectiveness (OEE) as well as effective
maintenance based on reality rather than the
calendar.
Reduced downtime
It goes without saying that downtime on
high-value production lines is an expensive
business. Reducing downtime involves the
optimum use and maintenance of plant,
which is difficult to achieve without the
real-time determination of OEE, historical
trending and precisely matching production
with demand.
Proactive process control
Fixing problems after the fact is often
unavoidable but costly. It’s far better to
monitor trends and to detect potential
problem areas before they become
threatening. This can be achieved through
access to real-time data that is collated and
presented in the form most relevant to the
decision makers who have to use it.
Reduced engineering costs
The mining industry has to perform under
increasingly tight budgetary constraints but
with fewer and fewer engineers. One way of
doing this is to define, deploy and maintain
standards with regard to plant items. Most
mining groups have a large geographic
spread between shafts and above ground
beneficiation plants. Only Wonderware’s
System Platform can create a single robust
“galaxy” of all these remote systems (with
full redundancy) so that all plants can be
looked at in a single virtual environment.
Such a system means that changes can
be made to the master template and
propagated instantly to all instances of that
item throughout the whole geographic
spread of the mine. This can greatly reduce
engineering costs on expansion projects
especially since all the engineering can be
done centrally irrespective of the size of the
mine or even how many mines are involved
or their geographical locations. Standards
also result in a lower cost of ownership for
the automation system as a whole.
Reduced maintenance costs
The capital-intensive equipment used in
mining operations and refineries needs
to be monitored on a 24/7 basis and its
operational life needs to be extended
as long as possible. In order to do this,
it’s important that maintenance be done
through intelligent diagnosis rather than by
schedules. In that way, there is a proactive
approach to maintenance rather than fixing
things that only need repairing because
a calendar said so. One way of reducing
maintenance and production costs is
through the real-time measurement of
Overall Equipment Effectiveness (OEE).
A key aspect of reducing maintenance costs
is to ensure that the Planned Maintenance
System (may be stand alone or as part of
the ERP) is kept up to date with detailed
production data (motor running hours,
compressor start/stops, tons throughput,
etc.). If such updates between shop floor
and maintenance systems are handled
automatically, this encourages maintenance
based on usage rather than on elapsed time.
Preserving past investments
Most mines have a collection of disparate
PLCs and automation systems as they
evolved over time. Although these are
valuable assets, what’s far more valuable is
the engineering time and effort that was
invested in their proper operation. Yet, the
information from these diverse systems
must all contribute to a seamless real-time
database from which all the necessary
decision-support information can be
collated. What’s needed in these instances
is a system that is designed with this very
November/December 2012 | 13
scenario in mind and that can make all these
systems work in concert.
Streamlining beneficiation / refining processes
Predictable product quality
The competitive edge allowing a supplier
to increase revenue is product quality.
In product beneficiation and refining,
consistent product quality is an indication of
a successful process that has less wastage
and rework. In order to consistently and
predictably deliver quality products,
processes need to be standardised and
strictly controlled. This means that software
solutions must enforce the development,
deployment and maintenance of company
standards as well as the implementation
of international standards with respect to
the interchange of information between
disciplines such as SCADA, MOM
(Manufacturing Operations Management)
and ERP. A refinery process, for example,
can’t happen in the absence of the
company’s business processes and the ease
of interaction between them is a definite
contributor to lowering costs through the
improved exchange of decision-support
information.
Metal accounting
Based on the premise that “what goes
in must come out” and due to the very
high value of processed metals, real-time
inventory is mandatory for precious metal
accounting purposes. It’s important to keep
a tight rein on the crucial parameters of
“input” and “output” mass and components
because a discrepancy could be an
indication of a process or security problem.
Maintaining proper metal accounting
procedures won’t reduce production
costs but will explain their “inexplicable”
rise. Today, metal accounting is being
continuously refined through tighter security
measurements and sophisticated advanced
process control applications for the detailed
diagnosis of even the most complex process
problems in real-time.
Metal accounting is a statistically rigorous
process with an extensive audit trail, which
should not be confused with production
information/accounting systems, which
typically provide best available information
on a real time basis. both are absolute
requirements in the precious metal industry
while production accounting is often all that
is required in base metal and other mining
environments.
Security
With high value metals such as gold and the
Platinum Group Metals or PGM (platinum,
palladium, gold, rhodium, ruthenium
and iridium), the lack of security can lead
to significant erosion of profits because
criminals are only interested in the final
(and therefore most valuable) version of the
product. So, at the system level, security
functions should include the facility to define
groups of users, material flows and operator
functions per activity and per location. User
access to the system should be limited
to their areas of responsibility. Regarding
transaction security, any information system
should check that the material is received at
the requested destination, that the received
mass is within the specified tolerance for
that particular material and that the correct
group of users receives the material. This
includes more business rules that have
to do with the dispatcher of the material
in question. A failed transaction should
then automatically warn the appropriate
responsible person by cell phone (because
there’s no time to lose) and also by e-mail for
confirmation.
Audit trail
This is yet another aspect of security
because, due to the high value of the
processes in question, it is vital to know
where responsibilities lie and who was
responsible for which actions and/or
decisions as well as who was responsible
for authorising them. Maintaining an
audit trail is one way of keeping track of
responsibilities. Those mining environments
that are under the Sarbanes Oxley whip will
find that audit trails are an essential part of
doing business.
Increasing first-pass efficiency
In the platinum refining industry for example,
increasing the first pass (concentrate
dissolving) efficiency plays an important part
in reducing the production costs of the final
product. This will require the integration
of real-time data with intellectual property
blended into an advanced process control
system with purpose-built diagnostic and
recovery algorithms.
Optimising energy usage
Throughout the metal refining process,
energy is an important consideration and the
real-time determination of the efficiency with
which that energy is used is key to reducing
production costs.
Identifying bottlenecks
Metal refining and processing is the tip of a
large production pyramid and bottlenecks
here tend to be far more visible than
elsewhere. But identifying bottlenecks isn’t
as simple as it sounds. Just because process
B seems to have a lot of material piling
up doesn’t automatically mean that it is to
blame. It could have to contend with poor
quality output from process A that, in turn,
could be accepting sub-grade material from
the mine. Identifying bottlenecks requires
the recording and real-time analysis of
production events as well as the ability to
“play these back” where discrepancies
in process performance can be readily
identified.
Flexibility
With the increasing need for speciality steel,
comes the need for enterprise flexibility that
can specify, implement and monitor new
processes at a moment’s notice.
Dealing with complexity
Steel products must be made to comply
with complex and changing customer
requirements, which, in turn, must lead
to strict and repeatable process control
procedures in a difficult environment of
changing variables. Today’s MES (and ERP)
solutions are designed to handle problems
of such complexity.
Dealing with the “not-so-obvious”
Since quantity and quality are often inversely
proportional, “maximum output” doesn’t
necessarily dovetail with “maximum profit.”
Determining that optimum point can only
be done with careful measurements in real
time coupled with knowledgeable decision-
Some of the challenges facing the Metals and Mining industry in South Africa
14 | www.protocolmag.co.za
making. Also more input tonnage may seem
like a good think but may actually “clog
up the works” with low-grade ore that will
simply erode profits since the processing for
low and high grade ore is the same.
Maintaining information integrity
System availability
From underground conveyors to stacker/
reclaimers, mining machinery and operations
are spread over a wide area, hostile to
standard computing platforms and networks.
Yet, all these areas are sources of data that
contribute to knowledge about the status of
the mine and they can’t afford to be off-line.
This is the domain of ruggedised box, panel,
tablet and “thin client” computers as well
as wireless connectivity where it makes
sense. Another aspect may be the necessity
for nothing less than “five nines” (99.999%)
availability of servers which, in turn, must
offer 100% redundancy facilities with respect
to data storage and integrity.
Distributed data sources
From the mine to the refinery to the
laboratory is still one enterprise. This
requires an approach called GeoSCADA
(geographically distributed SCADA systems)
with a centralised data collection and
collation facility that ensures the information
integrity of the supply chain. This becomes
even more important when having to
integrate with the enterprise’s ERP system
and true MES functionality is impossible
without it. Since laboratory analyses are the
control for refinery operations, they need to
be validated and tight LIMS integration is
important.
Implementing enterprise integration (production, MOM/MES and ERP)
A mine is the mining company’s “shop
floor”. Its need for SCADA and MOM/
MES functionality can’t be divorced from
the needs of the enterprise as a whole.
Head office management needs to be
able to check on production status and
problem areas at will and this requires
that they have drill-down access to the
mine’s real-time information base. Financial
planners need to tie production to their
business plans while monitoring plant
ROI and efficiency. Business managers
may have to satisfy customer demands by
combining the production of a number of
mines and this may mean that they have
to treat the enterprise’s mines as a single
production facility rather than individual
units. All this can’t happen without ties
between the enterprise’s ERP, MOM/MES
and production control systems. It also can’t
happen without a mine model that reflects
the company’s business model.
While the Wonderware System Platform
allows for Enterprise Integration, those
mining houses using SAP would make use
of Wonderware’s tight integration to SAP
xMII (Cross Application for Manufacturing
Integration and Intelligence). This has
already been used extensively in Southern
Africa.
November/December 2012 | 15
Applying best-practice IT and other principles to industry
Mike le Plastrier, MD, Invensys Operations Management Southern Africa
Introduction
The traditional arsenal that plant managers
and automation engineers have had at
their disposal to get the job done has
included everything from sensors, data
loggers and PLCs to CNC machines, robotic
welders and bottling lines to name a few.
In addition, this arsenal includes everything
to do with automation including DCS,
SCADA and historians as well as a multitude
of sophisticated software solutions and
complex computer networks. Interestingly
almost all of these “items” now belong to
the connected world – very few of them
reside in a disconnected state. This results in
the opportunity to ensure that we are able
to apply globally-recognised best practice
tools to manage these assets. While some
industrial environments are doing this,
our fi nding is that many are still managing
their connected assets largely in isolation
of traditional “business” IT infl uence and
well-proven approaches.
Traditional IT has a very formalised structure
with well-defi ned governance which
mediates an orderly approach to information
management and associated systems.
This is also the case in some of the better
organised industrial environments but
many don’t have fully-managed networks
or a well-defi ned infrastructure. And very
often this infrastructure is not visible to the
CIO. According to Gartner, architectural
decisions should embrace the plant fl oor. An
architecture that does not reach the sensor
level is incomplete. The bottom line is that
manufacturing CIOs can and should exercise
governance over technology from an
architectural perspective, as well as a tactical
operational one.
The result is that industrial IT (often referred
to as OT – Operations Technology) may
be missing out on numerous benefi ts
which can be realised from adopting
business IT principles, approaches and
best practices. In these diffi cult economic
times, it’s probably a good idea to examine
how industrial IT could benefi t by using
the well-invented wheel of its business
counterpart. It’s important to note that what
follows isn’t new technology by any means
and it’s certainly not new to business IT,
yet it will make a signifi cant and fi nancially
benefi cial difference to industrial operations
management.
IT best practices applicable to industry
Thin client computing
Thin clients have, in the past, been seen by
many as “dumb”, “green screen” terminals
of doubtful value. But all that has changed
dramatically. Today’s thin clients provide all
the rich functionality of PCs and sometimes
even more. And they do it at greatly reduced
cost, increased reliability and with minimal
maintenance needs and support costs.
Thin clients have no moving parts (fan,
disc) and so are ideally suited to the
hostile environments often encountered
on mining and manufacturing sites
(heat, dust, vibration, shock). Thin client
computers are excellent for SCADA/HMI
applications requiring remote, secure and
locked-down operations, protecting against
potential system tampering.
Insofar as maintenance is concerned, in
the rare event that a unit should fail, it can
simply be replaced by a working model
– instantly – no software to be loaded or
reconfi guration necessary because thin
Applying best-practice IT and other principles to industry
16 | www.protocolmag.co.za
clients get everything they need from their
server(s).
Then there’s the issue of support. Imagine
a large mining site with say, 40 widely-
dispersed workstations. Comes the day
for a software upgrade and somebody has
to travel to each and every PC, install the
software, reboot the system and make sure
everything is as it should be – possibly an
hour’s work per machine. If this was a site
based on thin client architecture, the new
software would simply be installed on the
terminal server and all the clients would all
have immediate and simultaneous access
to it.
A thin client environment starts with
the installation of a terminal server and
associated operating system, HMI software,
HMI development tools, e-mail client
software and any other necessary software
such as PLC communications (note that it’s
important to verify that any HMI or other
software to be used in this environment is
certified as thin client-ready).
Thereafter, personalised desktops are not
associated with the PC but with the user. So,
an engineer, for example, can move from his
own workstation to the server room or the
control room and he will always get the same
desktop that he needs which means that
dedicated engineering stations are no longer
needed. The same is true for operators. This
job or function-based concept of desktops
means that users can’t do anything they’re
not entitled to do. And because there’s
no USB port or disc slot, playing games or
introducing malware is impossible.
A single thin client computer can have a
mouse and keyboard as well as up to five
monitors. It can also be connected to a
video camera for views of the production
process or for safety or security reasons.
Since all thin clients are dependent on
central servers, a failure here can’t be
tolerated so multiple servers can be installed
allowing for automatic redundancy and load
sharing (figure 1).Note that while standard
Microsoft Terminal Services provides many
of these features, our experience has
indicated that specialist add-ons such as
ThinManager from ACP handles redundancy
and load sharing better and usually provides
an enhanced thin client environment.
Banks have been using the concept of
thin clients for years and probably the only
reason it is not being used more extensively
in industry may be because industrial IT
personnel are not fully aware of its huge
financial and operational benefits that
should make the decision to adopt this
technology a no-brainer.
Virtualisation
The availability of increasingly more powerful
computers, especially servers, has meant
Figure 1: Terminal servers can provide redundancy and load sharing while working in collaboration with existing servers
November/December 2012 | 17
that their full potential is rarely used with
CPU utilisation typically in the 5-15% region.
This has prompted the field of virtualisation
where several virtual servers can run on a
single physical server, saving space, power
and optimising the use of existing assets.
While this sounds like putting all the eggs
in one computing basket with the danger of
losing everything if something goes wrong,
the reality is quite different. That’s because
redundancy is so much easier to manage
and implement in the virtual environment
with a second physical server that can take
over automatically in the event of failure.
Also, this same technology provides for load
balancing so that applications can be run on
the server with more spare capacity when
needed. Maintenance is also much easier.
For example, it’s possible to make a copy
of a virtual server, update all its software
off-line while the original does the work and
then replace the original with the updated
copy without interruption of service. This
is especially applicable to the testing of
software before final deployment.
Yet another feature is that each virtual server
runs its own operating system which means
that even the oldest of DOS or Windows
NT4 applications, for example, can be
hosted whereas this wouldn’t be possible on
a modern-day server.
Using virtualisation, the server room
depicted in figure 1 could probably be
reduced to two or three physical servers as
shown in figure 2.
The enabling technologies for virtualisation
are Windows Server 2008 Hyper-V and
VMware. As with thin client servers, software
must be certified to run in the virtual
environment.
Monitoring of industrial IT assets
Throughout the IT world, the monitoring of
technology assets is standard practice to
the degree that it would be difficult to find
an IT department that would contemplate
operating without this. Yet the hardware and
software assets that monitor and control
a mining or manufacturing company’s
very reason for existence are left largely
to their own devices. Industrial IT isn’t
infallible and who gets called when it fails?
The maintenance technician, who might
be a genius insofar as repairing electrical
circuits, instrumentation and even some
computer aspects, but hasn’t been trained
in establishing the reason for an abnormal
level of polling retries by a SCADA system,
for example.
Monitoring asset performance from SCADA
to MES and beyond requires specialist and
specific knowledge, not only in detecting
anomalies but in suggesting a cure
before they become mission-affecting. In
production, a problem manifests itself in a
plant shutdown by which time it’s already
much too late. Failures rarely just happen.
Potentially threatening trends need to be
detected on a 24/7 basis by experts in the
field.
Invensys Operations Management in South
Africa offers such a service by installing
special agent software on each Wonderware
server located at customer sites. These
agents monitor the system continuously
to ensure that critical resources are
performing within best practice norms. If an
unacceptable threshold is reached, an alarm
is raised and Invensys engineers are alerted
before an issue develops. This triggers an
event management process which remains
active until resolution of the problem. Pre-
empting faults before they escalate into real
downtime, results in increased uptime for
the production plant.
While a number of companies use their IT
systems to monitor shop floor computer
status (e.g. RAM, hard drive, CPU, etc.)
as well as network traffic density and
performance, they can’t monitor the
performance of applications. While such an
arrangement will detect a rise in network
congestion, for example, it won’t be able to
track down the reason to, say, polling retries
or scan overruns.
Change management and disaster recovery
Another given in the world of traditional
business IT is the concept of backups. Once
again, no IT department would ever consider
this as anything else but a mandatory and
well-regulated practice but this doesn’t
seem to be the case in industry. High quality
change management software products can
do it all at the industrial level automatically
by monitoring software changes to PLCs,
robots, drive systems, human-machine
interfaces, computer-based real-time control
and data acquisition systems as well as
documents that are related to those systems.
Benefits include real-time version control,
reduced process downtime, fast and
accurate recovery, pinpointing the location
of unknown changes, complete source
warehousing, historical records, source code
protection and insurance against mishaps.
It usually only takes one 2-hour, R2 million
shutdown while everyone scrambles around
for the last known working version of PLC
code to attract people’s attention to the
importance of such an initiative.
So much for the most important IT best
practices that should be adopted in industry.
Figure 2: Virtual servers configured within redundant and load sharing physical servers
Applying best-practice IT and other principles to industry
18 | www.protocolmag.co.za
What follows are other best practices which
are becoming increasingly important in any
production environment.
Other best practices
Central Information Room
For many large distributed companies that
operate nationally or across a continent like
Africa, putting skilled engineering personnel
at every plant can be costly and impractical
– this is especially true of mining companies
which, by definition, are geographically-
dispersed according to the distribution of
mineral resources.
To be effective, each mine should have an
expert metallurgist on hand to determine
if, for example, the crushing is being done
effectively or if the correct chemical mixture
is being used when extracting minerals. It’s
difficult to have this level of skills available
everywhere and the answer is to centralise
these skills at one location for the benefit of
all remote sites. These specialists wouldn’t
control the plants as this would still happen
locally, but they would be available in a
consulting and advisory capacity to guide and
optimise processes and for troubleshooting.
Such a centralised information facility
must be able to access systems from every
solution vendor and, while data at the
local sites needs to be of high resolution
for control purposes, the information sent
to the central information room needs to
be validated (which will require human
intervention), aggregated for bandwidth
reasons and contextualised (collated with
linked and supportive information) if it is
to make sense to the experts and analysts.
They must, in turn, be able to drill down to
the local detail level if necessary.
The implementation of an effective
information room will include the following:
• Establishing a physical central monitoring
facility – bringing the people together
• Development of standardised operational
procedures based on a common
information platform
• Formalising the procedures - this may
include a workflow capability (see next)
• Development of a dynamic simulation
models to assist in process/production
optimisation
A central information room based on this
will ensure that the company focuses its best
human assets into a centre of excellence at
the point of maximum leverage for improved
enterprise-wide results.
Human-level workflow management
Process malfunctions, for example, need to
be handled immediately and consistently
and this is a job for humans whose workflow
and collaboration to handle these situations
needs to be mapped as carefully as for any
process control system. Procedures to rectify
process or human errors are normally on
paper and prone to different interpretations.
The effectiveness of any action taken is
difficult to measure and rarely documented.
Did the procedure work or was it a waste of
time? Lots of paperwork isn’t the answer and
what happens if the person with the skills to
fix the problem leaves the company? Was
the problem escalated by the right person at
the right time? Who dropped the ball?
A workflow management solution is needed
which will ensure that the right people are
involved, that will monitor follow-ups and
manage escalation while also providing an
auditable trail of actions.
Conclusion
There is no doubt as to the financial and
operational benefits of adopting best
practices – that’s why they’re called best
practices. They are proven effective and no
experimentation is necessary. The industrial
world would benefit tremendously by
readily accepting sound, tested and proven
traditional IT principles and it would also
benefit the company by having a uniform
standard by which information and its
supportive technology is deployed and
employed throughout the enterprise.
Figure 3: Workflow management is a useful tool for the tracking and enforcing of event resolution
November/December 2012 | 19
Remote Operations Centres in miningDenis du Buisson, editor, Protocol magazine
Any nationally or internationally-distributed
company has two main problems regarding
their geographical distribution: Knowing
what’s actually going on in their various
remote sites and servicing these sites with
the knowledge and expertise necessary to
keep them profi table.
In South Africa, Eskom, Transnet as well as
all distributed companies are examples of
enterprises faced with the daily reality of
optimising their geographically-dispersed
operations with limited technical resources
and expertise. This is especially true of large
mining companies
Running complex operations in
remote mining locations is becoming
more challenging due to the
increased diffi culty of attracting
experienced staff to work in these
locations. The increased focus on both
safety and production growth is also
leading to an increased interest in remotely
operated equipment. The escalating costs
of providing a 24x7 manned operation is
another driver for optimising the staffi ng
levels both on site and in the back-offi ce.
Remote Operations Centres (ROCs) are
collaborative environments that are used
for more than just managing the day to
day operations of equipment. Increasingly
they are used to monitor and control every
aspect of the operation, including providing
the data and information necessary at
different levels of the business for a variety
of purposes. The ROC is the nerve centre
of the operation which has been evolving in
capability to handle an increasing number of
tasks through its application in a number of
different industries.
A common theme from these industries
is that for ROCs to be successful, it is
necessary to incorporate and
integrate a number of emerging
technologies. These technologies
include new intelligent sensors, real-
time data collection and management,
advanced data and application integration,
expert systems for alarm management and
escalation, robust communications networks
within and between sites, linked geospatial
and document management systems and
collaboration rooms with both video and
data feeds.
The mining industry can learn from these
industries to achieve: fewer personnel
exposed to hazardous situations, better
reaction to tactical production issues and
emergency situations, more effi cient and
reliable operations, better production
throughput as well as better and more
collaborative strategic decisions.
The mining industry does not need to
break new ground to implement signifi cant
improvements in the remote management
of operations. The lessons already exist for
designing, developing, implementing and
running Remote Operations Centres.
For example, in 2010, mining giant Rio
Tinto launched its remote operations
centre as part of its “Mine of the Future”
concept. The centre features more than
200 controllers and schedulers and 230
planning and support staff to control mining
operations in the Pilbara region of Western
Australia - 1500km away from the centre’s
home in Perth. In a statement, Rio Tinto said
that the “high-technology, purpose-built”
operations centre is now the primary control
centre for the company’s network of mines,
rail systems, infrastructure facilities and port
operations in the Pilbara region.
ROCs are not new but a tried-and-proven
concept where “mission-critical” means
just that – and at the highest level. In
defence, there has been a revolution in
battlefi eld management, with the increased
use of remote sensor and communications
technologies providing real-time information
back to remote control and command
centres. While safety is a clear driver, the
increased fl ow of information also leads
to better tactical and strategic decisions.
The “fog of war” is gradually being lifted
by the use of smart technologies, which all
come together in the ROC.
Optimising the contribution of valuable human assets
Mining operations are complex and need
on-site management by skilled people such
as metallurgists and engineers – but such
experts are not readily available and so it
makes sense to optimise their contributions
from a central location so that all remote
sites can benefi t from their knowledge.
This, in turn, leads to a more uniform and
standardised approach to the resolution of
Remote Operations Centres in mining
20 | www.protocolmag.co.za
issues and decision-making not to mention
the benefits that can be gained from experts
collaborating and communicating with one
another in a single locale and without delay
to address particularly thorny problems.
There’s also an indirect but highly-desirable
benefit to this centralised approach. For
anyone to make an informed decision
remotely, the data alone are not sufficient.
What’s also needed is the context in which
the data were obtained. For example, data
about a seemingly unproductive night shift
might have nothing to do with the personnel
involved but with delayed laboratory results,
ore quality, machinery failures or countless
other contributing factors. The necessity
for context forces the gathering of linked
ancillary information which, in turn, leads
to a better understanding of operating
conditions and ultimately, ideas for their
improvement.
Today, we have Enterprise Manufacturing
Intelligence solutions that are designed to
do just that.
Some of the benefits of ROCs
• Greater visibility of entire operations
to a wider audience, including off-
site specialists, leading to faster
and better reaction to tactical
production issues and emergency
situations
• Increased depth and breadth of
information, analysed in an integrated
and timely manner, leading to more
efficient operations, such as through the
detection of equipment degradation
before it impacts production
• Optimised production through more
timely and accurate operational
information delivered to all levels of
planning and operations, regardless
of location
• More informed strategic decisions
based on improved business processes
that deliver the right information to
the right people in the right time,
who collaborate more widely
• All this leading to higher production at
lower cost and lower operational risk.
Acknowledgement: Portions of this
article are extracts from the synopsis of a
Paper by Colin Farrelly and Rus Records,
presented at the CRCMining 2007
Australian Mining Technology Conference,
Perth, October 4-6, 2007
Rio Tinto’s ROC
November/December 2012 | 21
The clearest path to modernisation.
Secure your future with Foxboro and Triconex
Bypass the risk and cost of obsolescence through our unique and
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visit us at iom.invensys.com/Modernise.
Avantis Eurotherm Foxboro IMServ InFusion SimSci-Esscor Skelta Triconex Wonderware
© Copyright 2012. All rights reserved. Invensys, the Invensys logo, Avantis, Eurotherm, Foxboro, IMServ, InFusion, Skelta, SimSci-Esscor, Triconex and Wonderware are trademarks of Invensys plc, its subsidiaries or af�liates. All other brands and product names may be trademarks of their respective owners.
Real Collaboration. Real-Time Results.TM
INV-347 Modern2-GenericA4.indd 1 9/10/12 1:57 PM
0800 INVENSYS | [email protected] | iom.invensys.co.za
22 | www.protocolmag.co.za
Authors: Bob Cook, Director - Mining and Metal Processing, Invensys Operations Management Serena Lang, Business Value Consultant, Invensys Operations Management Peter G. Martin PhD, Vice President and Invensys Fellow, Invensys Operations Management
Mining industry dilemma
The metals market downturn of the past
decade is certainly behind us, but the
mining industry faces huge challenges as
global economic volatility is combined with
rising energy costs, constrained supply
and an ever-changing set of parameters
for which miners have to make decisions.
Meanwhile metal prices remain high and
future demand forecasts are positive. On
top of the market volatility, many mining
complexes are characterised by aging
assets, challenging locations, constrained
talent pools, traditional organisational
silos and unpredictable profitability. These
challenges have exacerbated the transition
from limited production to almost unlimited
demand.
Meeting these daunting challenges
requires a leap from the traditional
production approach to measurable,
real-time profitability control. Measurable
real-time profitability control not only
creates higher levels of profits, it also
provides a collaborative environment
through enterprise-wide visibility. This leads
to improved morale, better employee
retention, increased levels of safety,
improved environmental stewardship and
more exciting working environments to
better attract and retain the best talent.
The need for real- time profitability control
has been driven by a transition of mining
business variables from high stability
over extended time frames, to real-time
volatility that has negatively impacted the
industry over just the last decade. Mining
executives have recognised that although
their operational efficiency may be well
controlled, their profitability often appears
to be out of control. Invensys has developed
real-time profitability control for mining
enterprises to meet this need. Implementing
real- time profitability control involves
measuring the key business variables across
the mining enterprise, empowering all
personnel to make business decisions that
drive profitability, safety and environmental
integrity, and driving specific initiatives that
measurably improve the business.
Measuring the business in real time
Mining and mineral processing operations
have invested for decades in the effective
measurement of efficiency throughout their
operations. Process sensors that measure
Driving real-time profitability across mining enterprises
such variables as flow, level, pressure,
temperature and speed are commonplace.
But with the increased volatility in business
variables, measuring efficiency – although
absolutely necessary – is no longer
sufficient. In order to bring profitability
under control, the key business variables of
production value, energy costs and material
costs also need to be part of the real-time
measurement system. Since these variables
all impact the safety and environmental
integrity of mining enterprises, it is also
critical to bring safety and environmental
risk measures into the real-time domain.
Invensys has developed a patented
approach to measuring these key business
variables in real time right down to the
nodes of the value chain, that capitalise on
the installed sensor base and the available
business information to build a new real-
time business measurement database easily
accessible across the enterprise.
Empowering people to make better decisions for the business
Once the real-time business
measurements are in place, they can be
effectively utilised to empower people
throughout the enterprise with the exact
information they need to make good
business decisions in the time frame
they need. This contextualised real-time
decision support significantly helps
bring new talent up to performance
levels in half the traditional time and
November/December 2012 | 23
achieve performance levels never
previously attainable. Real-time decision
support information also enables every
person in the operation to be real-time
performance managers; perform their
job functions more effectively, agilely,
collaboratively, safely and profitably.
Job attractiveness and satisfaction have
been shown to significantly increase as
employees feel they are a more integral
part of the business and to business
performance improvement. Invensys has
developed great expertise on how to
most effectively empower all personnel
who impact profitability with the precise,
real-time information contextualised to
their exact responsibilities, experience
and education levels to make them as
effective and profitable as possible.
Measurable real-time profitability improvement
Once the real-time performance
measurements and empowerment portals
are installed and operating across the
enterprise, the incremental cash flow from
any new performance improvement initiative
becomes clearly visible. Mining executives
quickly discern the return on any investment
and can direct capital to those activities
that drive the most value. Invensys has
developed a “theory of constraints” process
for determination of the most valuable
performance improvements that can be
made in mineral processing enterprises and
measures success on the results.
Profitable safety and environmental integrity
The primary constraint functions impacting
the profitability of most mining enterprises
are tied to the safety of the operations, the
people and the environmental integrity of
the operation. Managing profitability within
reasonable safety and environmental risk
domains is essential. Invensys has developed
a patented approach to measuring safety and
environmental risk in real time which provides
operational personnel the information they
need to both effectively and safely increase
the profitability of mining enterprises.
Enterprise Control System
One of the key technical challenges
imposed on the drive to effective
measurable real-time profitability
improvement is the installed automation
and information architectures in mining
enterprises. Unfortunately, most mining
enterprises operate with a variety of
systems provided by a variety of vendors
and installed over a long time frame. Most
of these systems cannot work together
without the expenditure of significant
capital to support their integration, and
even integrating these systems together
does not ensure effective interoperation.
Often the only solution appears to be
ripping out the existing technology and
replacing it with systems from a single
vendor. This huge capital hurdle prevents
many mining companies from moving
forward. Invensys has developed a new
open system concept that allows all of
the systems across a mining enterprise
to be effectively unified into a single real
time domain for less than one tenth of
the traditional cost. These new Enterprise
Control Systems finally make moving
forward to real time profitability viable
and cost effective. They also enable either
local or remote Collaboration Centres
that meet the professional and personal
requirements of today’s workforce, and
further improve employee morale and
satisfaction leading to higher levels of
personnel retention.
Summary
The volatile dynamics of the minerals
marketplace and the demands placed
on mining enterprises have presented
huge challenges to mining executives.
It is clear that business as usual will not
meet these challenges. Recognising
the real driving forces and moving to
a measurable real-time profitability
improvement business model is the key
to meeting the challenges. Invensys has
decades of experience in working with
mining executives to drive performance
improvement and has pioneered real-
time profitability for mining enterprises.
The challenges are great. The solution is
measurable real-time profitability --- from
Invensys.
24 | www.protocolmag.co.za
Real-time operations management in the metals, minerals & mining industryIn a nutshell ...
Invensys employs Real-Time Operations
Management to significantly drive
business value improvements in Metals,
Minerals and Mining operations.
Real-Time Operations Management is
designed distinctively to complement
the rapidly evolving Metals, Minerals
and Mining industry by managing
throughput, energy, and yield in real
time. Users can easily measure and
be more proactive about business
intelligence, transition control, and
optimise competing objectives in real
time — all key requirements to keep
pace with the speed and demand of
today’s changing business environment.
Introduction
Extracting minerals from ore is an extremely
energy-intensive operation. With the soaring
costs and growing demand of construction,
along with globalised competition, mineral
processing complexes are required to
achieve very high throughput rates — all
while continually looking for ways to
maintain or increase production and reduce
energy consumption.
Energy has become one of the highest
variable costs for Metals, Minerals and Mining
operations. In most facilities, the cost of energy
changes significantly in real time. Throughput
has emerged as one of the top challenges —
specifically, how to maximise production while
balancing utilisation and availability.
Many initiatives and offerings that are
available, focus directly on production,
energy, and yield management, with most
involving large expenditures that may not
drive results for a year or more. Industrial
executives are continually searching for new
approaches to operations management
that are more aligned with the demands of
today’s business environment.
Real-Time Operations Management is based
on a simple four-component model (see left
image) designed to match the demanding
requirements of industrial operations.
Part of an enterprise approach
Real-Time Operations Management
addresses specific operations management
issues that drive immediate bottom-line
value within Metals, Minerals and Mining
operations. Various operations management
programmes are currently available in the
market today, and Invensys’ Real-Time
Operations Management complements
these programmes to increase their overall
effectiveness within the industry.
By using an effective operations
management programme from Invensys,
Metals, Minerals and Mining operations can
keep pace with the speed and demand of
today’s changing business environment.
Real-time operations measurement
• Real-time measurement of throughput,
energy, and metallurgical accounting
• Key performance indicators at each
consumption, production, transfer, import,
or export point in the mill
• Plant-wide, real-time production reports,
efficiency, and maintenance cost
accounting with contexts from the ERP
and Supply Chain Management systems
Real-time operations empowerment
• Multi-level, role-specific intelligence views
that empower personnel
• Robust, real-time forecasting and
prediction of impending events
• Role- and condition-based alerts and
adaptive collaboration guided by
supervisors and specialists
• Real-Time Operations Intelligence that
delivers 3-5% average reduction in energy
consumption, improvements in critical
production measures, and increases in
utilisation by up to 0.25%
November/December 2012 | 25
Real-time operations control
• Reduction of unplanned outages to less
than 1 per year — increases utilisation
by more than 2% and reduces energy by
more than 5% per year
• Invensys Consultants specialise
in maintenance, energy, remote
collaboration, and safety improvements.
They analyse current safety and control
strategies and recommend specific
actions to drive improvements with a
projected value for each action.
• Invensys Delivery specialists team
with client engineering to implement
improvements
Real-time operations optimisation
• Proactive guidance allows users to make
informed decisions for conflicts, such as
short-term and long-term throughput,
energy, and yield
• Invensys Consultants analyse current
operational strategies, business plans,
and operations culture, and recommend
decisions and actions to drive and
measure the value of each improvement
• Improvements from Real-Time Operations
Control and Optimisation deliver
additional reductions in energy cost from
3-6%
Invensys proactively drives solutions
value and sustainability by continuously
improving technologies for Metals, Minerals
and Mining operations with Real-Time
Operations Management. By applying
safer techniques, such as alerting operators
and engineers before issues arise, Metals,
Minerals and Mining facilities will promote
safer elements for evolving performance
cultures.
Real-time operations management in the metals, minerals & mining industry
26 | www.protocolmag.co.za
Mining for operational excellenceAuthors: Russell Barr, director, Performance Measurement Group, Invensys Systems Inc. Robert E. Cook, member SME, vice president of mining, Invensys Systems Inc.
November/December 2012 | 27
Operational excellence is generally known
as a management system integrated across
critical functions that are geared towards
continually improving operational
performance. Functional areas such as
health, environment and safety, quality
and human resources are the focus of many
corporate-wide operational excellence
programmes. Operational excellence also
focuses on improving areas such as customer
orientation, employee empowerment as
well as process, and systems optimisation. It
is widely viewed as critical to sustaining
business performance improvement.
Although it is difficult to find a universally
accepted definition, or even common
foundation in many respects, operational
excellence remains a popular term in the
business world. Many organisations have
developed their own version of organisation
excellence, influenced by such individual
factors, other similar institutions or
even third-party service providers.
A mining organisation is no different
from other organisations in that adopting
and implementing effective operational
excellence programmes can
dramatically improve business execution
and performance across regional or global
interests. This paper brings together
various perspectives of operational
excellence and reconciles them for a useful
composite for the mining industry.
While most agree that operational
excellence should include normal functions
in a manufacturing operation such as
production, maintenance and engineering
and processes such as quality, environmental
and continuous improvement, many other
factors for operational excellence seem to
vary from perspective to perspective. Thus,
programmes that manufacturers engage
in may seem the same, but may, in
fact, be different in key areas. This may
affect organisational performance
in tangible ways. Management
must buy into the company’s definition
of operational excellence and be
dedicated to achieving it. A review
of many of the existing definitions
of operational excellence, explicit or
embedded as part of a programme, should
yield the following common factors:
• Help organisations better execute their
processes and services.
• Be geared towards improving quality.
• Align the various operations with the
overall enterprise strategy.
• Be geared towards continuous
improvement.
A composite of operational excellence
definitions suggests that it is:
• Geared towards helping the organisation
achieve sustained profitability;
• Tied to strategic alignment and business
objectives;
• Tied to solid investment strategies;
• Integrated as part of the culture, process,
time plan and performance;
• A relevant performance measurement
system;
• Extended to include all aspects of the
supply chain (including external suppliers);
• Integrated with health, safety and
environmental (HSE) aspects.
And, while the pursuit of operational
excellence intuitively suggests that
businesses should improve, it is very
difficult to achieve given the difficult
challenges facing companies today. Mining
businesses face numerous pressures to
perform in a global marketplace such as
demand, energy cost, variable cost and
pricing fluctuations as well as infrastructure
challenges to further confound the
environment. Companies generally
must look to the following:
• Improving profitability.
• Maximising existing and acquired assets.
• Optimising value chain.
• Driving more efficiency from labour,
transportation and other parts of the
infrastructure.
• Becoming more agile to take advantage
of opportunities.
• Expanding operations globally, extending
best practices to new operations.
• Controlling costs and profitability with
different pressures and price fluctuations.
• Managing environmental factors for
different mine properties in different parts
of the world.
Increasing regulatory requirements can
further burden systems and processes.
However, a company must be responsive in
order to stay in business, requiring that its
functions make further adjustments and
drive more inefficiency out of the systems
and processes in order to continue the drive
towards operational excellence (Taylor,
2006). Safety and environmental
responsiveness are not just seen as required
responses to the regulatory environment but
rather as a part of the fabric of the company
and being responsible to societal and
business stakeholders.
With all of these challenges, it is critical that
mining operations improve across the entire
enterprise in a way that drives business
value. Therefore, mining companies must
strive to be excellent beyond just financial
dimensions. These companies must
be excellent along other dimensions
such as innovation, social responsibility
and employee responsiveness as well being
able to respond effectively to a changing
environment as a business operation
(Chakravarthy, 1986). As mining
companies continue to expand and change
through organic growth or through mergers
and acquisitions in places that they have
never done so before, it is more critical than
ever that mining organisations strive for
operational excellence to be able to develop
sustainable operations with reasonable
standardisation.
A model for operational excellence
The model presented in figure 1 is a
composite of many existing definitions of
operational excellence currently available.
While this is a general model, it can be
applied to the mining industry.
Operational excellence programmes should
include many interrelated and interacting
components such as quality (Q), continuous
Mining for operational excellence
28 | www.protocolmag.co.za
improvement (CI), knowledge management
(KM), human resource development (People),
HSE compliance and management,
and performance measurement within an
aligned business. Processes, procedures,
knowledge and other aspects of mining
operations as part of a larger operational
excellence programme should be shared
as best practices across the enterprise (i.e.
across mines, mineral processing, freight,
etc.) on a vertical or horizontal basis.
Continuous improvement
Continuous improvement can be generally
described a set of activities designed to
bring gradual, but continual improvement
to a mining process through constant
review. These activities typically consist of
waste elimination, cost reductions and other
efficiencies (Blanchard, 2009). Continuous
improvement enables mining companies to
embed the principles of sustainability into
their business. As mining companies look
to improve their operations in the face of
increasing global pressure and competition,
continuous improvement programmes
have been undertaken by companies in an
effort to remain competitive and improve
their position.
To ensure that continuous improvement
projects and initiatives are adding value
to the company, a real-time performance
measurement system must be coupled
with continuous improvement programmes.
Real-time business intelligence can
also be applied to greenfield projects
to provide all layers of the business
with an unprecedented view in to the
business performance in the mineral
processing operation. With this business
intelligence, people can make better
decisions to improve performance by at
least 3 to 5 percent. This enables operations
to earn project payback in a shorter
timeframe. A proper real-time performance
measurement system that provides business
intelligence is critical to showing the value
of projects to the company, recovering
investment as soon as possible and ensuring
the strategic nature of initiatives and
projects in a timeframe, resolution
and reach that makes sense. It brings
together the proper elements of finance,
strategy and operations to effectively
measure performance, to provide timely
feedback to the right people and to enable
performance improvement.
The mining industry is continually facing
tough economic pressure (low market
prices and high costs). To compete
successfully, a mining company must use its
assets in the best possible way. It must
also have the best people and processes.
Frequently, companies have turned to
continuous improvement programmes,
formal or informal, that drive activities
to solve problems that were not aligned
with the original direction and were not
clearly measurable in terms of benefit
to the business performance. Through
the careful use of real-time performance
measurements to support continuous
improvement processes, additional
productivity will be realised and sustained.
As global competition increases,
manufacturing has become more strategic.
Assets are becoming tools in broad global
corporate strategies that need faster
and better information to maximise profits
beyond the previous standard of cost
reduction. Competition has come from
developing areas of the world that had
been off the radar of many companies. To
remain competitive, companies must get the
maximum out of their existing asset base.
Continuous economic optimisation and
improvement remains critical.
In the past, the results of continuous process
improvement efforts were measured in
productivity terms, such as tons per day, and
not in financial terms, such as revenue per
ton or other pertinent metrics. Even if these
were measured in financial terms, they were
based on budgeted amounts that gave
misleading direction when used in real-
time. It is easy to see that these continuous
improvement processes helped, but they
can be improved. For example, in the mining
industry, as assets are stretched to keep
up with demand while minimising capital
expenditures, measurements that provide
information on incremental revenues per
ton become more important because nearly
each dollar in sales less the variable cost of
production falls to the bottom line.
At the operator level, real-time performance
measurement information presented in a
meaningful and actionable way is critical to
driving business performance as the front-
line decisions typically have high value,
especially in variable cost containment.
At the plant management and executive
management levels, performance
measurements that have a financial
Figure1: A model for operational excellence
November/December 2012 | 29
component become more important,
especially if they are in real-time or so-called
right-time. They provide management with
the opportunity to respond to financial
issues before being blindsided by a problem
that only reveals itself after the financial
reports are out.
Opportunities for continuous improvement
in mining and mineral processing are vast
and well-documented and involve the
balancing of the value produced by control
of availability and use of the plant assets.
These include but are not limited to:
• Fleet management.
• Ore quality management.
• Crusher control.
• Mill load control.
• Labour management.
• Mineral processing.
• Energy management.
• Operator training.
Health, safety and the environment
Many mining companies have global
interests that vary in terms of environmental
regulation and challenges. Opportunities
for improvement in health, safety
and environment as part of operational
excellence in mining and mineral processing
are vast and well-documented. They include:
• Air emissions management.
• Tailings management.
• Mine air management.
• Water management.
• Mine safety review.
• Supplier management.
These, and many other factors, are critical
to a mining company’s ability to thrive in
terms of short-term profitability and longer
term sustainability of a viable and reputable
business with society’s well-being in focus.
HSE factors vary from region to region in
terms of regulation, impact on society and
on firm profitability. Air emissions from
smelting and roasting processes can have a
significant impact on the environment and
yet their regulation is very strict in developed
nations and can be nonexistent or not
enforced in less developed countries. There
is, however, evidence that responsible
manufacturers are getting ahead of the
environmental regulation curve and are
improving their emissions control ahead of
regulatory changes.
Many mining operations are improving
smelting control to lessen mineral content
in the tailings. This has a dual impact on the
business. First, less of the mineral product
is wasted, in effect making better use of raw
material inputs. Secondly, fewer minerals
are deposited in the soil, which lessens the
impact on the local environment.
Areas in lesser-developed parts of the world
are undergoing substantial exploration and
development with many new operations
getting their start from junior and major
mining companies. Standardisation of best
practices and processes is a critical part
of the operational excellence foundation.
Many companies have differing regulatory
policies, depending on constraints of
local government policies. When possible,
operations strive towards uniform framework
or systems of HSE across the operations,
adopting or converging on the more
aggressive approach.
Proactive mining operations are involved
with local regulatory and academic
constituencies to help monitor, form
and train societal interests in HSE affairs.
Some research even suggests that
those companies proactively involved
in improving their respective position
in environmental affairs experience “superior
economic returns,” (Thomas, 2001). Some
mining companies have invested in local
educational institutes and have invested in
housing interests to benefit the local
environment. Such activities by mining
outfits are helping to improve society
and their impact on the environment.
Incorporating these and other practice
across the operations helps miners strive
towards operational excellence and
sustainability efforts for long-term societal
benefit.
Quality
Another important part of our definition of
operational excellence involves the impact
of quality throughout the operations. The
impact of quality on the business operation
is widespread and can have a major impact
on performance along many business
related dimensions. Quality has impact
throughout the operation including raw
material, utility, final product and ore quality.
Mining for operational excellence
30 | www.protocolmag.co.za
Opportunities for quality improvement in
mining and mineral processing are vast and
well-documented, including ore quality
management, concentration water content,
mine air-quality and final product quality.
Quality management is integral to
operational excellence and must be tied to
company profitability. Quality is connected
to people, continuous improvement,
performance measurement, human resource
development and knowledge management.
Mining operations are cognisant
of this, integrating quality into ore
management, intermediate product and final
product analysis as well as various products.
Requirements for quality systems differ
depending on the application. For
example, quality requirements for grade-
control programmes will be different than
greenfield exploration projects. Typically,
laboratory information management systems
(LIMS) play critical roles in measuring,
analysing and managing quality
information and is often integrated with
other systems such as mine modelling and
production planning systems.
People
Clearly, employee involvement
and empowerment in operational
excellence programmes are critical to
success measured on many dimensions
including organisational performance.
Mining companies look to improve
such functions as waste management and
energy management through continuous
programmes with measurable economic
goals and benefits. Success in these types
of programmes and activities requires a high
level of employee participation.
The mining industry is battling a significant
problem in the “greying effect” and on
the decline of professionals and students
in mining industry education programmes.
This has stressed the workforce in terms of
mining experience and knowledge needed
for efficient operations across multiple
dimensions. Given the current economic
climate, fewer people are generally
engaging in mining-related educational
programmes. As a result, fewer new
people are being introduced to the industry
while senior mining employees are starting
to retire. With the scarcity of mining
talent and remoteness of many mining
operations, organisations must now look for
other ways to rally experienced people to
deal with a multitude of issues.
With a strategic operational excellence
programme in place, a highly collaborative
environment can be enabled by application
integration (dissimilar operating systems)
and incorporating visual content from
multiple sources. This will allow people to
work in a physically separated environment
and allow plant interaction and optimisation
on a virtual basis. Figure 2 presents a
conceptual schematic of a technology
solution needed to bring together different
mineral processing operations together.
In this conception, grinding operations
across the enterprise can be analysed and
improved in a central location by experts.
Managing change
Making changes in the way an operation
is run in any of the operational excellence
dimensions will likely have a resulting impact
on people within the organisation. Human
resource management is one of the
most important strategic areas in
mining operations today. The human
resource function is on the front line
of helping employees deal with changes
in the organisation and is integral to
communicating and maintaining the culture.
Organisational excellence changes can
occur along any of previously discussed
dimensions and the effects of the changes
to the people in the organisation can
vary widely. Generally, the following should
be undertaken in change management
activities:
• Define what needs to change and the role
of change agents.
• Evaluate climate for change and develop
a plan.
• Find and cultivate a sponsor.
Figure 2: Grinding resource management – Collaborating with content from multiple sources presented in a secure and highly-interactive form
November/December 2012 | 31
• Communicate change and prepare the
path for change.
• Integrate the change in to the culture and
solidify change leadership.
• Attain small wins and continually
communicate.
• Measure change progress and integrate
lessons learned (Mento).
Change management is critical to the
successful improvements in mining
operations as it relates to key dimensions
of the organisational environment:
people, process and technology. Change
can manifest itself in larger reorientations
to smaller incremental changes, requiring
adaptive change management techniques
and effort to effectively manage change with
different magnitudes. Irrespective of change
magnitude, communication is a critical
success factor that must be supported
and facilitated by management (Woodward,
2007).
Empowering employees
Employee empowerment is critical to
making improvements in any dimension of
operational excellence. In fact, empowered
employees are critical to success of any
business and changes in a business,
especially in mining operations where
operations are in diverse and remote
locations.
Human resource analysis within the above
context should also take place. As a
company strives to improve its competitive
position, the employee is being looked
at as an asset that can be used to provide
and drive more value through the plant. A
company that is looking to improve and
optimise performance should provide
its workers with better information and more
authority. Employees who know what their
metrics are will be more apt to perform to
them and will work as an integral part of the
operational team.
As mining operations look to get more
from their people resources, they must
also institute performance management
programmes to improve the context
and control of goal setting and
improvement activities in the operation
to improve performance against goals.
Communication of goals and improvement
mechanisms to attain goals is continuous
and considered a requirement for these
types of programmes.
Knowledge management
Effective knowledge management is critical
to the sharing and creation of innovation
and knowledge within mining companies
and is critical in developing new products,
approaches, process improvements and
other factors for attaining and maintaining
a firm’s competitive advantage (Halit,
2005). Two main themes come to light in
understanding knowledge management:
dispersion or circulation of existing
knowledge with a technology focus and
management and creation of knowledge
in terms of processes, social aspects,
environment and its requirement for
innovation.
The current manifestation of knowledge
management in industry is really
associated with knowledge sharing where
existing systems are used to make old or
existing learning/knowledge available and
reusable for current workers to improve
performance (McElroy, 2008).
While the creation of knowledge is essential
to long-term performance improvement,
it must be validated and tested within
innovation, marketing, engineering or other
appropriate functions in order for it to
be useful to the company and focused
on the business (Smith, 2005). However,
this validation, or approval process,
can sometimes function to limit creativity
and, thus, must be properly guided
and monitored. Firms must realise this
and be open to different approaches to
knowledge creation and management.
Knowledge creation, organisational
learning and innovation rely heavily on
social processes within the organisation.
Acknowledgment and support of this
reliance is critical to knowledge creation
(McElroy, 2003). However, because of its
nature as a social process, it is very difficult
to really manage knowledge creation
and sharing of knowledge.
Knowledge management is critical
to successfully implementing
improvements to be more efficient
as well as to be more innovative in
mining organisations. Knowledge
management efforts typically focus on
organisational objectives such as improved
performance, competitive advantage,
innovation, the sharing of lessons learned
and continuous improvement of the
Mining for operational excellence
32 | www.protocolmag.co.za
organisation. Mining companies tend to
rely on their technical staff to bring in new
ideas and innovation. The main system
for managing the knowledge management
function tends to be through management
meetings and is usually driven by its
formalised business planning methodology.
Knowledge management efforts can help
individuals and groups to share valuable
organisational insights, to reduce redundant
work, to avoid reinventing the wheel, to
reduce training time for new employees and
to retain intellectual capital as employee’s
turnover in an organisation. Some new
technologies immersive virtual reality (IVR)
help companies meet the knowledge
management, training and retention
challenges they encounter in the face of an
aging and dwindling industry workforce
A lack of knowledge within an organisation
in a certain area tends to drive outsourcing
programmes and many times focus on legal,
accounting and financial services (largely
compliance), capital raising and IT/
networking. In some instances, business
planning is outsourced.
Performance measurement
Effectively measuring performance across
a business is decisive to its success and its
ability to execute its strategy across the
operation. Operations of a given business
can range from small, custom shops to
multinational corporations spanning several
product and business lines. In mining terms,
junior operators can run smaller exploration
and development businesses where larger
multi-nationals can operate exploration,
research, mine and mineral processing
operations in multiple base mineral or
precious domains on multiple continents.
Performance measurement crosses multiple
domains and functions in mining companies
and is essential to understanding, analysing,
improving and sustaining performance while
striving towards operational
excellence. Many mining companies use
scorecard systems to assess strategic and
operational dimensions of performance in
addition to standard financial reporting
systems and operational reports.
Corporate performance measurement
has more recently been associated with
measuring performance across an enterprise
along multiple dimensions in addition to
financial reporting systems using various
systems, processes and tools.
Balanced scorecards aid in balancing
short- and long-term objectives, using a
measurement framework beyond traditional
financial and accounting to also
include shareholders, customers, internal
processes, and innovation and learning. This
provides a perspective that many companies
use to measure the performance of
strategic execution through many layers in
the organisation if analysed and implemented
properly. Scorecarding systems take many
forms including those developed by
Kaplan and Norton as well as other third-
party and home-grown measurement and
scorecard systems.
Figure 3: Operational Excellence model
November/December 2012 | 33
Scorecarding systems are usually historical
in perspective (i.e. daily, weekly and other
time frames) and are not easily actionable
for users and usually are not well circulated
among the different layers in the
organisation to aid in decision-making.
Managers and supervisors typically use
operational reports that provide critical
data such as production rates and
amounts of various products and lines,
raw material and energy consumption
rates. Operational reporting systems
are also used to measure the efficacy
of the operation in terms of production
related activities such as truckloads
of ore moved, shovels processed,
tons of ore crushed, concentrator
throughput, electrical consumption per
unit processed and other measurements
providing insight in to operational and
maintenance performance, including:
• Overall production.
• Production per product.
• Shovels.
• Ladles.
• kWh per ton.
• BTU per ton.
• Concentrate produced.
• Availability.
• Ore quality.
• ... and other measurements.
These reports are typically evaluated daily,
weekly and/or monthly and should be
integrated from plant asset-based metrics
to plant- and mine-level metrics and be
available and used by all relevant layers
within the organisation.
This does not necessarily provide actionable
measurements of performance for strategic
execution or even financial accounting
performance in the mine or mineral
processing areas of the operation. A
significant problem in most mine/mineral
processing operations is the lack of real-time
performance measurement along financial
and strategic dimensions in conjunction
with operational KPIs and process variable
data. Newer process technologies have
been developed to effectively develop and
implement real-time strategic, financial
and operational performance metrics for
manufacturing operations domains. These
technologies enable mining operations
to measure performance along multiple
dimensions in real-time and provide the
critical decision-making information to
all relevant domains in the form of easy-to-
use dashboards and reports.
Figure 3 presents a conceptual model
of strategic decomposition, dynamic
performance measurements of
plant performance and business intelligence
of the most important performance
measurements on a role-basis for
each relevant layer in the operation.
Conclusion
Operational excellence encompasses many
functions and areas in a mining operation
and requires the involvement of many
people in order to be successfully supported
in the operation. Clearly, attaining
proficiency and excellence in the six critical
dimensions of operational excellence —
performance measurement, continuous
improvement, health, safety and
environment compliance and management,
quality, knowledge management, and
human resource development — presents a
big challenge for mining operations to
ensure a thriving well-aligned business.
Operational excellence is about striving to
be the best and showing this excellence
in a way that the financial community
looks at, admires and rewards. In order
for initiatives and programmes associated
with operational excellence to be
effective and thrive, complete buy-in and
participation from the people who it affects
is critical (Zorabedian, 2008).
References
• Taylor, Patick, “Driving Financial Process
Improvement,” Strategic Finance, January
2006; 87, 7. pg 52-55.
• Chakravarthy, Balaji S., “Measuring
Strategic Performance,” Strategic
Management Journal, Sep/Oct 1986; 7/5.
• Blanchard, David, “Achieving Competitive
Excellence,” Industry Week. Cleveland:
Jan 2009. Vol. 258, Iss. 1; pg. 44.
• Thomas, Alison, “Corporate
Environmental Stock and Abnormal Stock
Price Returns: An Empirical Investigation,”
Business Strategy and the Environment,
May/June, 10/3, 125-134, (2001).
• Mento, Anthony J., “A change
management process: Grounded in both
theory and practice,” Journal of Change
Management, 3/1, pgs. 45-59.
• Woodward, Nancy Harch, HR Magazine,
May 2007, Vol. 52, 5, pg. 64-65.
• Keskin, Halit, 2005, “The Relationships
Between Explicit and Tacit Oriented KM
Strategy, and Firm Performance,” Journal
of American Academy of Business;7, 1,
pg. 169
• McElroy, Mark W. (2003), “The New
Knowledge Management: Complexity,
Learning, and Sustainable Innovation,”
Butterworth-Heinmann, Boston.
• Smith, Ken G., Christopher J. Collins,
and Kevin D. Clark (2005), “Existing
Knowledge, Knowledge Creation
Capability, And The Rate Of New Product
Introduction In High-Technology Firms,”
Academy of Management Journal, Vol. 48,
No. 2, 346-357.
• McElroy, Mark W. (2003), “The New
Knowledge Management: Complexity,
Learning, and Sustainable Innovation,”
Butterworth-Heinmann, Boston.
• Zorabedian, John, http://www.
americanexecutive.com/content/
view/6637/31/ , Energy Executive
Magazine, April 1, 2008.
Mining for operational excellence
34 | www.protocolmag.co.za
Dynamic Performance Measurement (DPM)So, technology can do it all – then what?
DPM is a system of measurement rather
than a system of nuts and bolts or another
expensive acronym. By measuring what
matters and letting everybody know what’s
happening – and that means everyone from
operators to CEOs – DPM lets people see
how their actions contribute to or detract
from the company’s strategy to achieve its
objective.
DPM is a concept that extends business
performance measurement beyond
traditional accounting to the realities of
real-time production. It was developed
after more than 300 CEOs underlined the
inability of their office systems to provide the
information required to address problems in
a timely manner.
Capitalising on the fact that access to
enterprise–wide information is no longer
a problem, DPM focuses on supplying
individuals the exact information they need
to monitor and adjust their activities and
performance in terms of the company’s
profit-making strategy and that means
stepping across the artificial boundaries of
ERP, MES and automation. Why? Because
CFOs need some production and financial
information as well as a good reason if they
are to authorise or veto the installation of
new plant. Because production managers
need scheduling, customer and production
information if they are to optimise
throughput. Because production personnel
need maintenance information and some
financial feedback if they are to remain
profitable and competitive.
DPM precisely defines the critical
performance measurement information
that IT must provide to support decisions
at all levels of the organisation. There’s
no more guesswork as to what people
may want to know or swamping them with
information ‘just in case’. DPM can also
reduce measurements to the common
denominator of money – including real-time
profit and loss. This provides personnel
with a measurement of their performance
in terms of a measurement unit that’s real
to everyone and encourages them to better
“own” their processes – just like professional
knowledge workers are supposed to do.
Top management are attracted to the
concept of DPM because of four main
reasons:
• They no longer want to work with isolated
solutions and want a holistic approach to
their information needs
• They need access to up-to-date financial
and operational information all the time –
not just after month-end
• They need to monitor cause-and-effect
scenarios at the operational level while
measuring their effect at the financial
level.
• They want to share their responsibilities
with the rest of their staff who need
right-time information to be effective at
all levels.
Implementing DPM need not entail
purchasing more hardware or software.
Many mines already have the necessary
infrastructure and the technology required
isn’t at all new. We can measure and monitor
anything we want so it makes sense that we
The synchronised enterprise. By extending performance measurement beyond monthly financial
reports to the world of real-time production, management can be supplied with information
dashboards on the status of their various processes. This allows a far greater level of control and
optimisation at the time when it matters rather than after the fact.
November/December 2012 | 35
measure business processes just like we can
measure production processes.
Extending business performance
measurement beyond finance into the real-
time world of MES and production will mean
that IT of the top floor and IT of the coal
face will have to work in concert if they are
to deliver the information goods at all levels
of the organisation in time frames that will
allow for corrective action to be taken. If this
sounds complex, it is, in fact, less complex
than what has to happen in the real-time
environment of mining operations every day.
DPM is not a package that one can simply
install and run. It has to be crafted for
each company depending on the systems
they have, the information they need
at all levels and, most importantly, the
attitude of management and staff towards
an environment where transparency and
performance accountability are key. While
the bottoms-up approach has driven
manufacturing companies to new heights
over the last decade, DPM is a top-down
approach that needs to be driven by CEOs,
CFOs and COOs who realise the immense
benefits to be had from measuring their
business processes with the same efficacy as
their production processes and empowering
the very people who can make all the
difference to their bottom line.
Conclusion
Today, with the shortage of skilled
technicians and engineers, companies and
educational institutions need to foster the
concept of the knowledge worker. We have
all the technology necessary to derive the
correct information to support any decision.
But somebody has to make that decision
and it can’t always be the same person.
DPM takes information to the next level and
will predictably become the tool of choice
for knowledge workers at all levels of the
organisation.
People should want to become professional
knowledge workers because knowledge
workers are more valuable to any company
and companies should want knowledge
workers for the same reason.
“Executives of industrial firms can help
catapult this faster way forward by
converting all their workers into knowledge
workers,” says Peter G. Martin PhD, Vice
President and Invensys Fellow, Invensys
Operations Management. “This will drive
improved bottom line results. We can best
understand what the knowledge worker has
to offer by empowering each of them with
the information they require to perform
A real-time information dashboard using Dynamic Performance Management that allows
for drilling down to more details for analysis and troubleshooting purposes. Note the panel
displaying real-time operating profit.
DPM at work in a large South African petrochemical enterprise where each dot represents an
hourly average. The black dots show normal operation. Midway through DPM Month 1 the DPM’s
Business Intelligence Dashboards were turned on resulting in significant cost reductions (orange).
The clincher came in the second month of DPM deployment where the drastic improvements are
obvious and unarguable (red). The ability of DPM to unlock people’s creativity and to enlist their
cooperation offers virtually limitless possibilities. And it can all be done without new systems.
their tasks in the most beneficial manner
for the operation and observing the results.
Experience has shown that the results can be
very dramatic.”
Dynamic Performance Measurement (DPM)
36 | www.protocolmag.co.za
Performance excellence for the mining and minerals industry with ArchestrA Workflow SoftwareIn a nutshell ...
Metals, Mining and Minerals Industries
challenges include responding to
changing market demands, stiff
competition and dwindling margins.
ArchestrA Workflow Software from
Invensys enables them to establish
repeatable, reliable procedures to
capture and standardise best practices
and operating standards to meet these
challenges.
Business Value
• Increase process agility
• Optimise resource utilisation
• Facilitate innovation
• Maximise productivity
• Reduce operational costs
• Enable knowledge management
Increasing costs, competition and the need
to optimise production units are some of the
key challenges faced by the Metals, Mining
and Minerals industry today. The industry
also faces a number of issues such as:
• High energy and raw material costs with
dwindling profit margins
• Skilled manpower shortage and loss of
process knowledge, due to an aging
workforce
• Stringent regulatory and environmental
compliance requirements
• Lack of “off the shelf” communication and
collaboration tools
• Disparate systems, leading to a longer
process cycle
• Lack of operational indicators and
dashboards
• Requirements for making changes on
the fly to continuously optimise grinding
processes (i.e., alert operators to change
charge cycles, based on modelling output
changes due to ore hardness variations)
• Lack of automated decision support
systems
• Need to enhance capacity to increase
output on demand
Adding to these challenges, companies
in the industry are also tasked with
responding to changing market demands,
delivering high levels of quality, while
ensuring lower operating costs. These
demands force companies to evaluate and
improve their business processes across the
organisation.
ArchestrA Workflow Software can help,
enabling companies to digitise manual and
automated processes that include people
and/or systems. Using ArchestrA Workflow,
companies can Model, Execute, Analyse
and improve their processes both inside
and outside of their organisation to drive
higher levels of collaboration, productivity
and innovation, allowing them to excel
in a highly competitive environment.
With ArchestrA Workflow, companies can
institutionalise work processes and efficiently
manage normal, unscheduled or disruptive
events within their operations environment-
-providing the right people with the right
information at the right time.
ArchestrA workflow software enables the metals, mining and minerals industry to:
• Standardise, visualise and track
processes across all domains within your
organisation
• Digitise Standard Operating Procedures,
Good Manufacturing Practices and work
instructions
• Coordinate human-centric and system-
centric tasks
• Support comprehensive compliance
management and audit trails
November/December 2012 | 37
• Synchronise with supply chain and other
automation/enterprise applications
ArchestrA workflow addresses key operational issues of the metals, mining and minerals industry, such as:
• Effective vendor management for
better cost control: with connectors to
the ERP, specifications can be matched
and orders generated, minimising manual
interference.
• Comprehensive knowledge
management to help with workforce
integration: GMPs, repair and
maintenance procedures, SOP’s can be
linked to workflows, so that information is
available on demand.
• Effective change management: enable
your organisation to handle sudden
changes like capacity, personnel,
management; establish corporate
procedures, facilitating mergers and
acquisitions activities.
• Efficient process automation: achieve
operational efficiency and better energy
utilisation.
• Comprehensive order-to-pay cycles:
reduced processing time and increased
visibility enables better margins.
• Better issue management and
resolution: expedite troubleshooting and
problem resolutions with multi-channel
notifications.
• Management of inventory control:
track assets for optimal use, and feed
preventive maintenance plans, to
maximise asset health and reduce
accidents and downtime.
ArchestrA workflow software works with your current automation applications
SCADA/HMI applications:
• Operator alarm response
• Electronic work instructions
• Model-driven HMI logic
MES applications:
• Specification change management
• Positive QA release
• QA hold resolution
• Synchronising with EAM and LIMS
applications
• Model-driven business rule management
ERP applications:
• Material receiving and inspection
• Master data approval
• Production order download
synchronisation
• Production order reconciliation
Performance excellence for the mining and minerals industry with ArchestrA Workflow Software
38 | www.protocolmag.co.za
The route to a simple solution is usually extraordinaryGet an end to end solution tailor-made for your business with Business Connexion’s Professional ServicesWhen it comes to making extraordinary connections, nothing comes close to the human brain. That’s why it’s the inspiration behind our ProfessionalServices. With our unique understanding of your business model, value chains and strategy, we can supply you with an end to end solution that helps youmake the most of your Business Processes, Applications Portfolio, Application Management and third party solutions. With our unique integrated solutions,we can help you build systems that enable you to enhance and grow your business. We call it the amplifying power of Connective Intelligence™.
www.bcx.co.za
November/December 2012 | 39
The route to a simple solution is usually extraordinaryGet an end to end solution tailor-made for your business with Business Connexion’s Professional ServicesWhen it comes to making extraordinary connections, nothing comes close to the human brain. That’s why it’s the inspiration behind our ProfessionalServices. With our unique understanding of your business model, value chains and strategy, we can supply you with an end to end solution that helps youmake the most of your Business Processes, Applications Portfolio, Application Management and third party solutions. With our unique integrated solutions,we can help you build systems that enable you to enhance and grow your business. We call it the amplifying power of Connective Intelligence™.
www.bcx.co.za
40 | www.protocolmag.co.za
Wonderware solutions at work in the SA Metals and Mining industry
November/December 2012 | 41
Information is a diamond mine’s best friend at Debswana
About Debswana
Debswana Diamond Mining Company Ltd, or
simply Debswana, is a mining company located
in Botswana and is the world’s leading producer
of diamonds by value. Debswana is a joint
venture between the government of Botswana
and the South African diamond company De
Beers.
The company is the largest private
sector employer in Botswana, employing
approximately 4 545 people, of whom over 93
percent are citizens of Botswana.
Contributions to the economy of Botswana
include:
• 70% - 80% of foreign exchange earnings
• 60% - 70% of government revenue
• 40% of GDP
Debswana operates some of the richest
diamond mines in the world. Its flagship
Jwaneng Mine is the world’s leading producer
of diamonds by value and Orapa Mine is the
world’s largest running mine by volume.
In 2010, Debswana production increased to
about 22.2 million carats, up from 17.7 million
in 2009. Carats sold were 23.9 million, with
total sales of P18.2bn($2.68bn). The revenue
improvement was a result of the increase in
prices after the 2009 downturn.
For 2011, Debswana had recovered 7.4 million
carats and sold 7.3 million carats as at the end
of April. The revenues for the period stood at
P7.3bn ($1.1bn), also influenced by favourable
prices. The production target for the year is 25
million carats.
Debswana Diamond Mining Company
saw the need to log and collate data
from its valuable Orapa, Letlhakane
and Damtshaa Mines (OLDM) in order
to implement an automated production
reporting solution at Orapa’s Plant No.
1, its oldest facility. These data would
need to be modelled, transformed
into meaningful information and made
available within the OLDM consolidated
Historian.
Goals
There existed a stand-alone DAS Server
at OLDM’s Plant No.1, which came about
during a successful proof of concept
implementation. However, without a
structured method of capturing data it was
difficult to implement a dynamic intelligence
solution. The main goal of the project was
to implement a data mining and reporting
system which would provide real-time
Information is a diamond mine’s best friend at Debswana
42 | www.protocolmag.co.za
production and performance information for
OLDM’s Plant No.1.
“Previously, Plant No.1’s data had to be
e-mailed to end-users on a daily basis,”
says Debswana IT Analyst Zwikamu Dubani.
“Only a few people on the list had access
to the information and the report was only
sent once a day in the morning. Now the
data are available to more users at anytime
with live data continuously updating the
reports.”
The new system would transform the plant’s
data into useful information and make it
openly accessible in a standardised format
(using ISA-95 guidelines) to all areas of the
business. This would facilitate the more
effective use of plant information that
would ultimately result in more refined
performance indicators, better optimisation
of plant operations and improved allocation
of resources at the plant.
Implementation
Debswana was already using Invensys
Wonderware solutions and it made sense to
continue with a company that Debswana saw
as being able to provide the best fit solution
for the given problem and that had provided
a detailed user information and system
specification for this implementation.
Bytes Systems Integration was selected
as the system integrator for the project
because of their local representation, good
past relationship with Debswana and the
company’s skilled and ArchestrA-certified
in-house team.
To achieve Plant No1’s project goals, the
following would have to occur:
• Upgrading of the System Platform hardware.
• Implementing a redundant Application
Object Server (AOS) configuration
• Having independent AOS servers in order
to reduce system downtime and improve
performance
• Configuring the Wonderware Information
Server (WIS) to generate reports detailing
the plant performance and production
statistics.
• Providing capability to import manually-
entered details such as production target
information
• Designing a system that is scalable in
order to accommodate more equipment
as required.
“The Plant No.1 project was a complex
undertaking ,” says Dubani “and for
Figure 1: Planned System topology at OLDM. The envisaged architecture at Jwaneng is similar.
November/December 2012 | 43
it to succeed, we identified some
critical success factors that included
the continued availability of financial,
human and material resources backed by
strong leadership and support of senior
and executive management. Apart from
“In my view, one of the most compelling aspects of the Plant no.1 project has been moving from manual capturing to automated data retrieval. This not only greatly reduces errors but also speeds up the delivery of accurate information. Now I no longer have to worry about ‘death by spreadsheet’.”
Zwikamu Dubani, IT Analyst, Debswana
effective management and streamlining of
on-going projects, we also needed effective
planning, communication and stakeholder
engagement to enhance buy-in on the
incoming new technology and systems.”
Bytes’ solution required the use of a
Wonderware System Platform for the plant
which included a Galaxy repository, an AOS
Server, a Wonderware Information Server
and a Wonderware Historian at OLDM.
“Plant No. 1 was to be completed in
6 months and gathering the required
information within the project timelines and
budget proved to be quite a challenge,”
says Esenthren Govender, systems engineer
at Bytes Systems Integration. “Other
issues that had to be addressed included
modifying the IT infrastructure since new
servers were required for the plant and
redesigning complex Excel reports for use
with the Information Server. Excel is seen
as the standard for data capturing until one
looks into other possibilities. Once there, the
road is endless.”
Reports
The data are sourced from the equipment
located at the plant and transformed into
information which is then published to
Wonderware Information Server reports for
analysis. There is a daily dashboard which
outlines key information on a single screen
for all WIS users on the company’s intranet.
The key performance indicator is the amount
of carats mined and to what degree this
compares with the daily and yearly forecast.
Another important statistic is the tonnage
of ore mined, from which it is possible
to estimate the carat yield that can be
expected.
All the information is used for production
reporting as well as for a new maintenance
system Debswana is implementing. 9 WIS
Figure 2: System architecture for Plant No. 1
Information is a diamond mine’s best friend at Debswana
44 | www.protocolmag.co.za
reports track key production data relating
to different sites and different mining
operations at Plant No.1. All reports are
available all the time and updated in real
time.
The road ahead
Currently, there is a project which is near
completion which aims to increase the
Wonderware structure to an AOS Server
for each of the remaining 12 areas as well
as a Wonderware Information Server and
a Wonderware Historian at the Jwaneng
Mining Operations. The OLDM and
Jwaneng Historians would then send plant-
critical data to an enterprise historian at the
Debswana Corporate Centre in Gaborone.
The Wonderware System Platform roadmap
will also look into further enhancing the
reporting by retrieving data that will be
sourced from the plant, the mine and
engineering services equipment located at
12 areas at the Jwaneng and OLDM mining
operations.
‘’The magnitude of the overall Wonderware
System Platform implementation will span
across a gigantic landscape which will
include 12 sites within the company. Such an
implementation requires pinpoint planning
and good operational synergy between all
operations in order to successfully integrate
thousands of pieces of data into a single
enterprise data store,” says Kago Rendoh,
Ivara – Wonderware System Platform
Project Manager at Debswana (Ivara is
the name given to the asset maintenance
management system).
Benefits realised at Plant No.1
• Data are now available that conform to
the ISA-95 standardised structure
• Using the Wonderware Information Server,
real-time reports are available to key
stakeholders continuously without them
having to rely on daily e-mails
• Reduced manual capture of information
Plant No.1
“Diamonds may be a girl’s best friend but data is a mine’s best friend.”
Hennie Serfontein Jr., Systems Engineer, Bytes Systems Integration
• Reports now include real-time and
accurate daily production figures
• Historical data going back more than a
year are now available for analysis
• Central location for all plant-related
information
• Moving from manual capturing to
automated data retrieval
November/December 2012 | 45
“Proof of the pudding” in action at SA’s newest iron ore mine
About ASSMANG
ASSMANG Limited is a South African company
that supplies raw material to the world’s steel
mills and alloy plants. Most of the group’s
production is exported to the Far East, Europe
and the USA.
Originally named The Associated Manganese
Mines of South Africa Limited, the company
changed its name to ASSMANG Limited in
2001. ASSMANG, which is owned equally by
African Rainbow Minerals and Assore, currently
has three operating divisions structured to
handle its three commodities of chrome,
manganese and iron ore.
ASSMANG’s Khumani iron ore mine is an
ambitious undertaking by any definition.
Completed in just two years from a
foundation of Kalahari sand, Khumani is well
on the way of becoming a principal player
on the global and competitive world of
primary metal production.
Background
ASSMANG’s new Khumani iron ore mine
is situated in the Northern Cape Province
of South Africa and close to Sishen. The
Khumani deposits are among the best
iron ore resources in the country in terms
of quality and quantity. Based on current
reserves, a new mine producing 8,4 million
tons annually would have a life in excess of
40 years and at double that capacity, a life in
excess of about 25 years.
By any standards, the Khumani mine is a
gigantic project. Starting in June 2006 with
a budget of R4 billion, 60 000 cubic metres
of structural concrete, 10 000 tons of steel,
3250 tons of plate work and 650 kms of
instrumentation and electrical cabling were
forged together to form this mega iron ore
mine in just two years.
The Khumani mine project was to be
implemented in two phases:
• Phase 1 was to be completed in
September 2008 and would have a
capacity of 8.4 million tons of iron ore
per year. Phase 1a, to be completed in
December 2008, would have a capacity of
10 million tons per year.
• Phase 2 would have an annual production
level of 16 million tons and was scheduled
for completion in late 2010 / early 2011.
• A possible further expansion to 22
million tons per annum is presently at the
feasibility study stage.
The iron ore is mined from a series of open
pits by conventional drilling and blasting
before being loaded onto trucks for hauling
to the primary and secondary crushers. From
there, the ore is transferred by conveyor
to stockpiles ahead of the beneficiation
plant. The run-of-mine ore is stockpiled on
blending beds in two categories, ‘on-grade’
and ‘off-grade’.
The on-grade ore is crushed, washed and
graded according to four size categories.
The off-grade ore goes through an identical
crushing, washing and screening process,
followed by a jig beneficiation plant to match its
chemical composition with client specifications.
There are 8 Geoscan on-line analysers
installed at critical locations in the plant to
monitor the chemical composition of the
ore in real-time, so that immediate remedial
action can be taken if the ore deviates from
the chemical grade requirements.
“Proof of the pudding” in action at SA’s newest iron ore mine
46 | www.protocolmag.co.za
Products are stockpiled ahead of a rapid
load-out station, which has the capability to
load 342 x 100-ton wagons in 8 hours – that’s
one 100-ton wagon every 90 seconds. From
there, the product is railed 860 kms to the
port of Saldanha Bay for export.
Solution selection
DRA Mineral Projects were appointed as
the Managing contractor for this project
and EPCM contractor for the plant and
infrastructure. DRA Mineral Projects is an
engineering company that specialises in
project management, engineering design
and implementation and has implemented
successful projects on five continents. DRA
appointed system integrator Iritron for the
Wonderware ArchestrA System Platform
3.0 implementation portion of the project.
Iritron was actively involved in the systems
engineering, instrumentation design and
PLC control systems aspects of the scheme.
This was a natural choice since African
Rainbow Minerals and ASSMANG have
standardised on Wonderware industrial
automation solutions for all their SCADA,
historian and plant web portal requirements
and Iritron is an ArchestrA-certified system
integrator that has provided Wonderware
solutions and support to ASSMANG since
1999.
“To effectively monitor this huge complex,
we implemented Wonderware”s System
Platform which is based on ArchestrA
technology and includes Wonderware’s real-
time Historian, the Information Server web
portal, ActiveFactory real-time production
performance analysis and reporting
software and InTouch for the SCADA/HMI
applications serving some 44 000 I/O tags,”
says Iritron director Johann Pienaar. “In
addition, we used the Topserver I/O Servers
from Software Toolbox to communicate
between the PLCs and the System Platform
as well as MDT Software’s AutoSave for the
change control management of all 63 Allen-
Bradley ControlLogix PLCs.”
“These solutions were chosen to give us
comprehensive data analysis facilities so
that we could check production status
and identify potential problems at any
time, “ says Marius Malan, control systems
supervisor, ASSMANG. “We also need
continuous operation without loss of control
or data as well as web access facilities and
links to our planning and ERP systems. Most
importantly, it all has to work through a user-
friendly and intuitive operator interface.
“But these are all things we need to do now.
This is a brand-new mine with a long future
and we will need to adapt production to
meet with market demands. That means
we’ll have to expand the system as and
when required and we’ll also have to do it
quickly and at minimal cost.”
System implementation
Allowing for the expansion of systems at
minimal cost is a cornerstone of ArchestrA
technology and one of the ways this
happens is through the development of
standards.
Standards allow companies to define, apply
and enforce their engineering criteria so
that everyone works from the same page.
Standards also mean that plant objects are
built from templates and that changes to a
single master template can be propagated
to every instance of that object throughout
the plant.
“The standards enforced by ArchestrA are
allowing us to describe plant objects and
their behaviour to reflect our experience
and needs,” says Malan. “Being ASSMANG
standards, they reflect our best practices
and can be used by other companies in
the group. The enforcement of standards
ensures that all future development
conforms to the norms already developed
and this will save engineering time in
the future, especially with the planned
extensions to the plant.”
Standards don’t only apply to plant
objects but also to the whole plant and
to integration with other disciplines in
the company. One of the key standards
that helps businesses build a coherent
organisation is ISA-95.
“Khumani’s plant model is based on the
ISA-95 standard which was facilitated by
Wonderware’s System Platform Application
Server and its best practices guide supplied
by Wonderware Southern Africa,” adds
Pienaar. “This standard was implemented
and adhered to throughout the project and
will greatly facilitate integrating the system’s
information with ASSMANG’s planning and
ERP systems.”
Another important ArchestrA attribute that
safeguards expansion at minimal cost is that
of scalability. At Khumani, they know they
will have to double their capacity in two
years and, in ordinary conditions, this could
mean some expensive system rework.
“When the time comes to expand the
system, the initial work done on standards
means that defining new capability will
be a matter of hours rather than weeks
or months,” says Pienaar. “In addition,
ArchestrA has been proved to handle more
than a million I/O tags and we’re currently
looking at (only) about 44 000. This, together
with a self-configuring historian, makes
system expansion painless.”
ASSMANG’s Khumani mine, a major
contributor to the company’s financial well-
being, can’t afford unplanned production
delays during its lengthy and productive
life. The mine has to produce quality
products that will be accepted worldwide
in an extremely competitive market and to
do that, it needs industrial information and
automation equipment equal to the task.
“ArchestrA’s management of dual
redundancy procedures not only guarantees
delivery of data to the Historian but has
saved us a significant amount of complex
software engineering to resolve this critical
issue, says Malan. “In fact, we no longer
Pienaar – “When the time comes to expand
the system, the initial work done on
standards means that defining new capability
will be a matter of hours rather than weeks
or months.”
November/December 2012 | 47
think “redundancy” but rather of decisions
that have to be made given the wealth of
available information – in other words, forget
the technology and focus on the business.”
Apart from standards, scalability and system
availability, ASSMANG needs a few more key
attributes from a system in charge of one
of its primary wealth-creating facilities and
these are security and architectural freedom
Figure 1: Part of the system topology at the Khumani Mine
Figure 2: Load-out stacking and Load-out mimic (dual screen)
– which don’t mean much if said quickly but
are key to versatility and freedom of choice.
“In a situation such as ours, it’s important
that only authorised personnel has access to
various levels of the system to make changes
to set points and other parameters,” says
Malan. With the System Platform, security
and alarming are uniform across the
entire system and we don’t have to make
provision for discrete sub-systems. Of
equal importance is our ability to change
our mind with respect to the structure of
our system and its interaction with others.
ArchestrA technology gives us that choice.
For example, we had to integrate with a
number of third party stand-alone InTouch
applications incorporated into the Metso
crushers, the Bateman load-out station, a
QMastor stockpile management system
“Proof of the pudding” in action at SA’s newest iron ore mine
48 | www.protocolmag.co.za
and a CCLAS LIMS system. Well, it all just
‘happened’”.
Conclusion
“For us, the most significant aspect of this
project was that ArchestrA technology gave
us a multi-user development environment
that allowed us to design, develop,
implement and maintain a large project
in one year,” says Pienaar. “ArchestrA’s
integrated development environment gave
us the tools to develop complex applications
without bothering unnecessarily about the
details of interfacing with PLCs at one end of
the spectrum and ERP systems at the other
while providing the functionality to do both.”
From the start, ASSMANG’s Khumani mine is
a winner, not only in terms of its rich deposits
but also in terms of how it will process them.
Today, no enterprise can survive without
efficiency and a major contributor is how well
processes can be measured and controlled.
Wonderware’s System Platform will be
providing Khumani mine’s managers and
operators the plant intelligence they need
for efficient operation far into the future.
Khumani Mine expansion project
For the mine’s expansion project in 2010,
ASSMANG again appointed DRA Mineral
Projects as the Managing Contractor for
the project and Iritron was again contracted
by DRA to implement the extensions to
the already-installed Wonderware System
Platform.
Iritron is a certified Wonderware
System Platform integrator and has a
long track record with ASSMANG and
extensive knowledge of their standards
and requirements. To date, Iritron has
successfully implemented five large
Wonderware ArchestrA projects ranging
from the Northern Cape to the United States
and the company is currently busy with
another four projects. Iritron is also actively
involved in the Beta and systems testing of
current and future releases of Wonderware
System Platform.
“One of the main advantages of the
Wonderware System Platform is its
scalability, flexibility and ease of expansion
once standards and templates have been
developed for a specific implementation,”
says Iritron director Johann Pienaar. “In
this case, the standards and templates that
were developed during the initial phase of
the project could be re-used for all the new
plant sections.”
In terms of hardware, the existing System
Platform was expanded by adding an
additional pair of redundant Application
Object Servers and six additional InTouch
View Nodes in the new plant sections – King
Primary Crushing, 2nd Load-Out Station
and the Jig Plant Extension. No other
hardware additions were required – the
existing servers and networks had more
than sufficient spare capacity in terms of
processing power and licensing.
In terms of software development, the
effort put in during the definition and
development of the standards and
templates during the initial project finally
Figure 1: Control Room of the ASSMANG
Khumani iron ore mine
Figure 2: Part of the Wonderware System platform Topology at the ASSMANG Khumani Mine
November/December 2012 | 49
paid off. “All that was required was to create
new instances of the existing templates
(motors, valves, conveyors, crushers, screens,
etc.) for each piece of equipment that had
to be added,” says Pienaar. “No testing and
integration was required, seeing as these
templates had already been thoroughly
tested. The same applied to the PLC
programmes.”
Once the object instances had been created
(exports from the FDES instrumentation
design software and CSV imports were
used to automate this process in both
System Platform and in RSLogix5000), the
new mimics were created by dragging and
dropping the associated object graphics on
to the mimic pages and adding the static
detail. The graphics and animation form part
of the object templates, so no additional
configuration or testing was required.
The sise of the Khumani Expansion Project
is about 50% of the original project, but the
SCADA development took less than 10%
of the original development thanks to the
standards enforcement of the underlying
ArchestrA technology. The savings in time
will be even more pronounced during
commissioning.
“We are thankful for Wonderware’s
ArchestrA technology because its
developers obviously understood our very
real needs and built an environment that
allows us to grow painlessly, quickly and
to the benefit of our clients,” concludes
Pienaar.
Benefits
• Using standards developed during the
initial phase of the project greatly reduced
engineering time
• Thoroughly tested existing templates
could be redeployed with confidence
• The System Platform provided all the
necessary scalability, flexibility and ease of
expansion the project required
Conclusion
Proof positive that the bottom line is
impacted positively when industrial
production solutions “understand” the
long-term view rather than cater for the
immediate fix. Based on soaring world
demand, it’s predictable that Khumani will
continue to expand and continue to hone its
production processes to maximise profits.
Through design, the solutions now in place
“understand” that this is the norm of today’s
industrial marketplace and will continue
to deliver results that keep pace with the
inventiveness and ingenuity of their owners.
After all is said and done, it’s results that
count – not promises.
“Proof of the pudding” in action at SA’s newest iron ore mine
50 | www.protocolmag.co.za
Invensys Wonderware’s ArchestrA helps SIs encapsulate and market IP
About AngloGold Ashanti’s Geita Gold Mine
Geita first came into prominence as the site of
a German colonial gold mine. A German gold
prospector discovered the mineral in the early
1900s in the hills surrounding modern-day Geita
town.
This and other discoveries triggered a gold
rush in the surrounding area, attracting German
and native prospectors alike. The colonial
government established a mine to exploit
‘Bismarck Reef’.
Mining activities significantly declined, however,
when Germany ceded control of its colonies to
the British after their defeat in World War I.
Geita regained its prominence in the mid to late
1990s when the Tanzanian government opened
the mineral sector to foreign investment. A
number of medium to large-scale mining
houses, including Ashanti and Anglo American,
conducted extensive exploration activities in
the surrounding areas.
The most significant outcome of these
developments was the construction of the
open-pit Geita Gold Mine, now owned by
AngloGold Ashanti, a leading global gold
producer.
Source Wikipedia
Traditionally, system integrators have
developed custom solutions that were
specific to a particular configuration
of hardware and software. This made
them unmarketable to a broader
audience while often limiting their
scope for modification with the original
client through non-conformance with
standards. This has all changed with the
introduction of the ArchestrA Object
Toolkit.
Background
In 2006, decreasing production at the Geita
Gold Mine in Tansania prompted AngloGold
Ashanti to investigate and to make some
hard business decisions. The loss of
skills at all levels throughout the process
plant necessitated the implementation
of automated control as far as possible
to reduce variability and increase control
expertise.
November/December 2012 | 51
AngloGold Ashanti called in South Africa-
based system integrator Systems Anywhere,
who had previously successfully addressed
such problems for the company. Over a
twelve month period, Systems Anywhere
installed a completely revamped control
system based on Invensys Wonderware
solutions that would:
• Apply the corporate standard
• Standardise the control philosophy
• Improve the alarming and alarm logging
for analysis
• Maintain a history of production data
• Provide for real-time and scheduled
reporting
• Incorporate an Expert System based
on fussy rules to reduce milling process
variation and improve production.
Other client requirements included a
maintenance plan and 24/7 support of
the control system software in spite of the
remoteness of the site.
The end result was a great success for both
client and system integrator: “This solution
allows us to fine-tune rules instantly,” says
Phillip Stevens, senior instrumentation
technician at the Geita mine. “The Expert
Operator releases the operator for other
duties. Where previously the operator had
to change mill parameters every six minutes,
the metallurgist now changes the rules every
few days. Average throughput is up by as
much as 30%.”
About the Expert Operator
The Expert Operator is a rule-based
(Fussy logic) system which allows an
“expert” to configure a controller to
respond to predefined scenarios in a
desired manner. The Expert Operator
takes over the functionality of changing
the set points from the human operator to
bring the mill to peak performance in the
shortest time.
To do this, three elements are involved:
• Filtering of the process variables
individually through a moving average
and checking them against their set
parameters
• Comparing the result of each variable
against the rules that are stored in the
database. The result is analysed to
determine whether the set point needs to
be increased or decreased
• This is then applied to a time interval (i.e.
how quickly the system needs to react to
the rule to ensure that production is kept
consistent)
The Expert Operator is programmed to
check the average of the variables and to
adjust the set point every “x” minutes in
order to maintain peak performance, in spite
of an ever-changing environment
“This solution allows us to fine-tune rules instantly. The Expert Operator releases the operator for other duties. Where previously the operator had to change mill parameters every six minutes, the metallurgist now changes the rules every few days. Average throughput is up by as much as 30%.”
Phillip Stevens, Senior Instrumentation Technician, Geita Gold Mine
Figure 1: InTouch screen for the Expert Operator Controller showing mill status
Figure 2: ArchestrA graphics “skin”
Invensys Wonderware’s ArchestrA helps SIs encapsulate and market IP
52 | www.protocolmag.co.za
“This is a very complex system,” says Barry
Searle, software development manager
at Systems Anywhere. “However, with the
help of ArchestrA, the Expert Operator was
able to be implemented faster than with
traditional means which means a lower-cost
solution for the client. Also, the operator
is now free to multi-task rather than focus
only on monitoring the mill performance.
The operator is also free to fine-tune that
performance without recourse to us or
anyone else. What’s more, the operator
no longer has to tweak the mill every few
minutes because the metallurgist can
directly control the Expert Operator to cope
with new rock conditions or other issues
through the selection of pre-configured
profiles.”
The next step – packaging the solution
Now that Geita mine had a proven Expert
Operator productivity solution, the next
step was to “wrap up” all the rules and
technology that made up the Expert
Operator into a single package.
To do this, Systems Anywhere used the
DotNet3.5 engine, C#, SQL Server database
and the ArchestrA Object Toolkit. “The
toolkit allowed us to take technology that
would have taken a system integrator
weeks to implement on site, into a single
convenient package that not only caters for
previous work but that can be deployed in a
matter of minutes,” says Searle. “This then
becomes a licensed object that prevents it
from being copied indiscriminately.”
Expert Operator packages are imported
at the click of a button. The database
comes pre-configured with proven
defaults and complex functionality
can now be implemented in minutes.
Provision is also made for multiple
profiles so that users can set up profiles
for common scenarios. This means that a
simple configuration change allows users
to change the mill from an aggressive
profile to a more conservative one.
System Anywhere’s Expert Suite of
solutions can run through ArchestrA or
stand-alone and has a SQL Server database.
“It allows us to incorporate innovative
solutions into ArchestrA without having to
maintain a separate codebase,” says Searle.
“By wrapping the object in an ArchestrA
layer, the plug-in is scalable, versatile, fast
to implement and brings our knowhow to
customers in a convenient format.”
Benefits
• Throughput up by 30% (e.g. 300 ounces
at nearly $2000/ounce = $600 000 DAILY
or more than $13 million of additional
monthly revenue)
• Operator freed for other tasks
• A complex control solution is
implemented in a fraction of the time it
normally takes
• Economy of scale brings the cost down
• The Expert Operator gives Geita
predictable, peak performance at all times
• Change the profile, not the rules. One of
the chief reasons for metallurgists having
to change the rules is changing rock
conditions. Adding the Expert Supervisor
level of control allows the metallurgist
to add multiple profiles. This means
that, instead of changing the rules, the
metallurgist just selects the profile that
best matches current rock conditions
• The upgrade requires installation of a
new object, but this is instantaneous and
doesn’t require intervention by the system
integrator.
What’s next for Geita?
• Equipment utilisation – Systems
Anywhere has developed an ArchestrA
plug-in that writes aggregated equipment
utilisation data to the system’s database.
All that’s required to use this is to drag it
under the equipment to be monitored in
ArchestrA and it starts logging.
• Expert maintenance – This includes
runtime and service interval tracking with
the automatic generation of work orders
etc. for maintenance systems such as SAP.
• MMRS Integration – Integration with
the AngloGold Ashanti global business
management system. “We’re now able
to link into any of the company’s business
management system for reporting
purposes,” says Searle.
Conclusion
Systems Anywhere is using the ArchestrA
Object Toolkit to take system integration
to the next level while Geita Gold Mine
is pushing the envelope to extract the
maximum from their plant as well as from
their investment in Wonderware solutions.
“From a system integrator’s point of view,
the ease of implementation of complex
solutions can’t be overstated. If you can
dream it, ArchestrA can do it,” says Searle.
“But more than this, solutions often aren’t
a perfect fit and, as in this case, we were
able to fill the gap with the Object Toolkit
which has allowed us to integrate 12 years of
custom solutions and the expertise that went
into their development into a de facto world
standard – ArchestrA.”
“What we can now do is develop small, manageable increments of technology and integrate them into ArchestrA. This will make the whole greater than the sum of its parts and far less risky than developing huge applications.”
Barry Searle, Software Development Manager at Systems Anywhere
November/December 2012 | 53
58 thin clients replace stand-
alone PCs at RBCT with help
from WonderwareAbout the Richards Bay Coal Terminal Company Limited
RBCT is the single largest coal export terminal
in the world. Opened in 1976 with an original
capacity of 12 million tons per annum, it has
grown into an advanced 24-hour operation with
a design capacity of 91 million tpa.
Positioned at one of the world’s deep sea
ports, RBCT is able to handle large ships and,
subsequently, large volumes. As such, it has
gained a reputation for operating efficiently and
reliably.
The 276 hectare site currently boasts a quay 2,2
kilometres long with six berths and four ship
loaders and has a stockyard capacity of 8,2
million tons.
RBCT shares a strong co-operative relationship
with South Africa’s national utility, Transnet,
which provides the railway services linking
the coal mines to the port and the shipping
coordination of more than 700 ships per annum.
The company equipment includes 5 tipplers, 10
stacker-reclaimers, 4 ship loaders and a number
of high-speed conveyors.
Mountains into molehills. For more than
three decades, Richards Bay Coal Terminal
has been reducing the mountains of South
Africa’s rich coal deposits into the molehills
of the more than 700 ships that call there
every year to satisfy the world’s hunger for
energy. Such a vast strategic facility cannot
leave performance to chance. That’s why
RBCT decided that a traditional PC-based
SCADA approach was no longer good
enough for their unique operations.
Background
RBCT’s 10 stacker-reclaimers, 5 tipplers and
4 ship loaders are large, complex machines
whose operation is impossible without the
assistance of SCADA systems that keep
their operators informed of their real-time
operational status.
Since these machines are constantly
in motion, vibration is an important
environmental consideration for traditional
PCs with hard drives. Another consideration
is that these PCs are distributed over a vast
and dusty site where cooling fans, while
doing their job, also contribute to the
accumulation of coal dust. The same applied
to all servers.
“Reliability problems with standard PCs as
well as the difficulties presented by backups
and upgrades prompted us to look for a
more centralised solution based on thin
client technology,” says Eric Gumede,
control systems specialist, RBCT.
About thin clients
A thin client is a low-cost computing
device that works in an application server
environment. It does not require state-
of-the art, powerful processors and large
amounts of RAM or ROM. In addition, thin
clients:
58 thin clients replace stand-alone PCs at RBCT with help from Wonderware
54 | www.protocolmag.co.za
November/December 2012 | 55
• Don’t have hard disc drives, CDROMS or
cooling fans
• Run with very low processing power.
• Are about one third the size of a
conventional PC.
• Work the same way as a desktop PC.
• Support the GUI environment of
Windows®.
• Can be configured on as low as 16Mb of RAM.
• Offer the same feel as working on any
Windows-based operating system®.
Project goals
It was decided to replace all 58 plant stand-
alone PCs with terminal clients to achieve a
system that is:
• Manageable – For quick and easy
configurations
• Cost effective – Cheaper to maintain
• More secure– Not open to abuse
• More reliable – Less maintenance and less
downtime.
• Accessible – Easy accessibility of reliable
HMI reports.
Solution selection and implementation
System integrator Quad Automation was
chosen based on their credibility and
availability for support after completion
as well as their knowledge of the plant.
Wonderware’s InTouch was already the plant
SCADA/HMI standard so it made sense to
continue on the same route but this time
with the Terminal Client Servers (InTouch
View) version which would be supported by
Microsoft’s Terminal Services.
This is a component in Microsoft Windows
that allows users to access applications and
data on a remote computer over a network.
It also lets administrators install, configure,
manage and maintain applications centrally
on a few servers. All application logic runs on
the server while the processing and storage
requirements for client machines are minimal.
“Because of the impact non-performance
could have on an operation of this
magnitude, it was important that both the
old and new systems run in parallel before
the old system could be removed,” says
Gumede. “The implementation was carried
out during 2006/7 and only took five months
to complete.”
Gumede is also considering the
opportunities offered by ACP’s Thin
Manager in order to extend the capabilities
of the system.
Figure 1: System topology
Benefits of terminal services clients to RBCT
• Reduced engineering cost on PC
budget – Lower hardware costs as well
as easy maintenance and deployment of
applications
• Improved software integrity - Backup is
only done on the server so that changes
can only occur at one point.
• Reduced power consumption – Thin
clients don’t have any moving parts (disc
drives, fans) and reduced computing
power.
• Reduced likelihood of theft - Thin clients
are useless to thieves because they have
little resale value
• Reduced downtime on SCADA systems
– Thin clients are physically more reliable
than their PC counterparts, quick to
configure and operators cannot make
changes.
• Increase end-user productivity - Operators
are limited to authorised applications only.
• Multiple connections possible to
different servers creating redundancy – A
technician can access a thin client from
any part of the plant rather than only
control rooms.
• The system allows terminal servers to
obtain and manage terminal server client
access licence (TS CAL) tokens for devices
and users connecting to a terminal server.
The process
RBCT’s import section receives coal-laden trains
whose trucks are individually emptied onto
conveyors by tipplers.
The conveyors take the coal to the stockyard
where it is distributed by stacker-reclaimers
onto stockpiles.
These same machines are responsible for
“reclaiming” the coal for conveying to RBCT’s
export section and sampling plants as well as to
the ship loaders.
58 thin clients replace stand-alone PCs at RBCT with help from Wonderware
56 | www.protocolmag.co.za
Keeping the networks in check at Lonmin
Lonmin at a glance
Lonmin is one of the world’s largest
primary producers of Platinum Group
Metals (PGMs) which are essential
for many industrial applications,
especially catalytic converters for
the control of internal combustion
engine emissions. PGMs also have a
widespread use in jewellery.
• Lonmin’s operations are based
in the North West and Limpopo
provinces of South Africa and
comprise 14 extraction shafts, 9
concentration plants as well as
extensive smelting and refining
facilities.
• Resources include 175 million troy
ounces of PGMs and 43 million
ounces of reserves
• The number of full time employees
is around 27,800 (year ending 30
September 2011)
• Lonmin has a primary listing on
LSE and the JSE
• 719,000 ounces of platinum in
concentrate (1.436m ounces of
total PGMs) produced and 721,000
ounces of Platinum sold (year
ending 30 September 2011)
The bidirectional flow of information
between business IT and manufacturing IT
is critical to real-time decision-making at all
levels but presents its own set of problems
regarding security. The owners of these
networks are naturally weary of providing
access to information and functionality which
could prove dangerous in the wrong hands.
Background
The original IT network had a flat topology
with a DAS I/O server collecting data from
the PLCs and communicating this to view
stations for the shift boss, mine captain or
engineer (figure 1). But, in order to conform
with security policies, it was decided to
separate the control network from the IT
network which resulted in the topology
shown in figure 2 where the production and
control networks are two VLANS running
on one control domain separate from the
IT domain. The production and control
networks are present in the control rooms,
process plant and in the production areas
but not in the office areas.
This arrangement, however, disconnected the
Figure 1: Previous system topology
November/December 2012 | 57
shift boss, mine captain and engineer from
the SCADA system and they lost the ability to
view production information in real-time. To
address the problem, a DMZ (Demilitarized
Zone) was implemented. A DMZ is a network
that serves as a buffer between a secure
protected network (Control Network) and
an “insecure” client network (IT Network). A
DMZ usually contains servers which provide
services to users from the client network, such
as the web and, in this case, terminal services.
These servers are open to limited access from
the client network, but protected by a firewall.
But this brought with it the issue of how to
deal with security because office personnel
could not be allowed unqualified access to
the control systems. One way around this
was to deploy additional view stations on
the control domain only by extending the
network and its infrastructure (equipment,
fibre links, PCs, etc.) but this would prove
costly per view station and would also
require time to implement.
The challenge therefore, was how to provide
the office area with plant information in
real-time while conforming with all security
policies and at minimum cost.
Selecting the solution
Three approaches were considered. The
first was to use ArchestrA read-only view
stations but this would incur the additional
network infrastructure costs just mentioned
and require the ability to maintain multiple
applications.
“The second option was to make use of
the Wonderware Information Server,” says
Johan Louw, automation specialist, Lonmin.
“Although Information Server allows access
from any network PC, this was a real-time
SCADA reporting environment which this
solution supports but which is better served
by the third option which was the use of
Terminal Server.”
Terminal Server, which supports Microsoft’s
Remote PC Connection, provided Lonmin
with a list of features that met their specified
requirements with a remarkable degree of
accuracy and which included:
• No Wonderware installation required –
this allowed Lonmin to be self-sufficient
• Quick Implementation – “Where some
engineers expected me to me busy for an
hour or more, I was finished in a matter of
two to three minutes,” says Louw.
• Easy access and security control – all
access to the system is controlled from
one server and this allows the full control
of where SCADA access is available
and also provides for the instantaneous
granting or withdrawal of access rights to
individuals. It was previously impossible
to know who had access to which SCADA
system or if this access was permitted.
• Easy application maintenance – all
applications are maintained and updated
at a central location without the need
for deployment to a multitude of
workstations. “The traditional approach
is to load the operating system on each
and every workstation which may all be
in widely-separated locations, configure
the networks including their security,
load service patches and finally load
the application software with service
patches,” says Louw. “Needless to say,
Figure2: Current system topology
“In my view, the most appealing aspect
of this project was that we could use old
existing technology and incorporate it with
ArchestrA as a solution to our Remote View
problem. With this technology, we gained
a lot more control than expected over the
remote viewing of SCADAs.”
Johan Louw, automation specialist, Lonmin
Keeping the networks in check at Lonmin
58 | www.protocolmag.co.za
this can be very time-consuming and
costly not to mention inconvenient.
With the Terminal Server architecture,
everything is done once only at a
central location and end-users all
have simultaneous access to multiple
applications, all of which are up-to-date.”
• Multiple applications hosted on
one server – all of Lonmin’s multiple
mine shafts, each with its own SCADA
system and applications, can be hosted
on a single server thereby providing
convenient access to those who need it.
• Client can view multiple applications at
once – terminals are not dedicated to any
single application and can switch between
applications at will.
“Finally, Terminal Server gave us the speed
we were looking for while also minimising
the load on the network,” says Louw.
Implementation
The first step was to set up Terminal Server
and to install the Terminal Server (read-
only) edition of the InTouch HMI / SCADA
application. “The read-only version prevents
any user from changing / stopping or
starting any equipment on the SCADA. We
then deployed the System Platform and its
view engine as well as all the applications,”
says Louw. “The next step was to define user
access and their sessions which involved
specifying which applications each user can
access. Thereafter, the only thing left to do
was to set up remote access to the server –
something which is really quick to do.”
Applications start automatically when
selected but server access beyond the
permitted range of applications is prohibited
thereby preventing any wilful or inadvertent
damage to the system. The application run
time can also be specified so that if a shift
boss or engineer forgets to sign off from
the application, it will self-terminate in the
specified time period. This feature also
lessens the network and server loads.
The System Platform’s Integrated
Development Environment shows which
platform and view engine is in use as well
as changes to any software releases. New
software releases can then be deployed to
all remote users instantly.
Figure 3: System Platform / ArchestrA Integrated Development Environment view of
software deployment
Benefits
• Real-time process information is available in the
office to support informed decision-making
• Independence of IT and production
networks while providing a secure access
from one to the other
• Easy and secure end-user access to
multiple applications
• No interference with SCADA system
operation possible
• Greatly reduced software support,
maintenance and deployment costs
• High system speed and minimal network
loading
November/December 2012 | 59
Dr. Kobus van der Merwe of Industrial Management Enhancement
The cost of operating outside baseline in mining
Using the Time-in-State Metric to quantify
operational performance
Effi ciency improvement initiatives are
more productive when motivated by top
management. Since operational effi ciency
impacts contribution margin, it is in
management’s interest to have insight into -
• The source of the problem (plant or
section)
• The magnitude of the issue (the impact
on Key Performance Indicators and its
monetary value)
• The nature of the issue (e.g. is it a design
problem, limited experience or material
problem).
Time-in-State (TIS) Management
programmes study plants in terms of their
operation in relation to baseline conditions.
Baseline conditions are associated with high
effi ciency, reliability, availability and stability.
About Industrial Management Enhancement
Experience has shown that most production
plants operate in an unstable or high risk state
for 60% or more of the time.
Operational risk encompasses the potential loss
due to the breakdown of controls. Breakdown
of control results in unpredictable and unstable
production processes. By implication, this
condition results in an inability to meet
production targets.
IME delivers Operational Performance
Management solutions to the process and
manufacturing industry. A structured and proven
methodology is utilised to construct process
status maps and to analyse and troubleshoot
the process to quantify Operational Risks.
Projects are characterised by high returns, a
strong emphasis on training and development,
and solutions facilitating asset sweating.
The TIS Management programme links
operating and equipment conditions to Key
Performance Indicators (KPIs). The latter
establishes a platform to calculate the cost
of operating outside baseline state. By
implication, assessments provide insight into
operational risk exposure.
TIS Management programmes evaluate
plant performance (process and equipment
performance) at the functional unit level.
A functional unit is a logical grouping of
measurements describing a function within a
Production Function. A Production Function
is the functional relationship between inputs
(feed material) and output (product). In the
context of maintenance, a functional unit is
a logical grouping of equipment fulfi lling a
Technical Function.
When all functional units associated with a
Production Function perform within baseline
state, desired / ideal performance follows.
The Time-in-State Metric quantifi es the
time that each functional unit operates
within ideal state. The time that functional
units, associated with a specifi c Production
Function, operate within baseline state
may not necessarily overlap. The time
that a Production Function operates in
baseline state is calculated as the average
Time-in-State Metric value reported on
the respective functional units (another
way to describe this relationship is to view
a Production Function as a unit consisting
of a network of functional units serving
a common objective which is to fulfi l the
production function).
This approach provides the ability to explain
the circumstances under which performance
was realised. In other words, KPIs report
aspects such as production rate, quality,
energy consumption per unit, etc. at the
Production Function level. The Time-in-State
Metric provides quantitative description of
how Production Functions performed in the
context of recorded KPI value.
Compiling a Time-in-State Metric on
historical process data delivers quantifi cation
of a functional unit’s contribution to overall
performance. The following relationships
exist within processing plants:
• Contribution Margin: A positive
correlation exists between Contribution
Margin and Time-in-State
• Overall Equipment Effectiveness (OEE):
OEE is the product of ‘Production Rate’,
‘Quality’, and ‘Availability’. A positive
correlation exists between Time-in-State
The cost of operating outside baseline in mining
60 | www.protocolmag.co.za
and each of the elements of OEE.
• Energy Efficiency: A positive correlation
exists between energy efficiency and
Time-in-State.
• Operating Cost: Operating cost follows
the same trend as maintenance cost -
i.e. higher Time-in-State implies lower
operating cost
• Stability: A positive correlation exists
between stability and Time-in-State
• Yield: A positive correlation exists
between yield and Time-in-State
• Maintenance Cost: A negative correlation
exist between Time-in-State and
maintenance cost. That is, the higher
the Time-in-State value the lower the
maintenance cost.
Mining example
In an open-cast mining application, ore supply
from the mine is a function of how well equipment
is utilised within the mine (shovels, haul trucks,
etc.). In this example, a primary crusher receives
the ore from the mine, crushes it and transfers
ore to a primary stockpile. The stockpile level
should be maintained to allow for scheduled
maintenance and production downtime on the
primary crusher without causing downtime /
delays in the downstream process.
An inability to sustain ore supply, during
intervals that the crusher is available, has
a definite cost impact. The magnitude
of impact will vary based on operating
conditions. An extreme case illustrates this
point: When the crusher is available and the
primary stockpile is full, poor ore supply rate
from the mine will have no cost implication.
A Time-in-State model quantifies
crusher performance using the following
measurements:
• Stockpile level
• Crusher Motor Power
• Lubrication System Pressures and Flow
• Mantle Positioner Hydraulic Pressure
The model defines the parameters required
for calculating the Time-in-State (TIS) Metric
value. The output of this analytical process
generates the following results:
• The relationship between TIS Metric and KPIs
• Having derived the relationship and TIS
Metric parameters it is possible to track and
monitor the impact of operating outside the
baseline state, in real time. This method
of quantification also improves decision-
making and root cause analysis.
Figure 1 illustrates how production rate
varies according to the %Time-in-State
Metric (each point represents a 7 day
production interval). Ideal operating
conditions (i.e. baseline state) realises a
production rate of 1180t/h.
The cost per ton is proportionately higher
under conditions where TIS Metric is 62%
compared to the interval reporting an 81%
TIS value. Under conditions where TIS is
low, the plant utilisation and availability was
lower. From a financial point of view, the
return on net asset decreases under these
conditions. (These numbers are typically
captured in a financial model constructed
during the project execution phase.)
Applying the Time-in-State Metric to
different, interconnected plants generates
valuable insight into key areas of concern.
For plants that are connected in series,
without decoupling capacity (intermediate
storage), performance is represented by the
product of the Time-in-State Metrics of the
respective plants.
Comments
In figure 1, each data point represents a week’s
production. The time interval utilised for the
TIS Metric calculation is adjustable and adapted
to match circumstances and requirements. The
objective is to establish a metric that provides
information facilitating better decision-making.
The same reasoning applies to the detail
contained on the TIS Metric.
In the above example, the TIS Metric is utilised
to track performance at a relatively high level.
The client is interested in knowing whether
selected initiatives are delivering expected
results. The weekly assessment provides high
enough granularity for timely modification
or adjustment if initiatives are not delivering
results - i.e. little lag time in performance
feedback. It should be noted that the traditional
approach is to evaluate maintenance cost,
availability, reliability, etc. over a time interval of
several months. Apart from potentially missing
opportunities, it can also negatively influence
human behaviour and motivation.
Developing and deploying TIS Metrics takes
place in multiple phases. The priority and
criticality of equipment and plant functions
differ and the latter motivates a multiphase
approach. Furthermore, the structure proved
to be successful in managing project risk while
maximising the internal rate of return (IRR).
For more information contact: Dr. Kobus van
der Merwe
Industrial Management Enhancement
Mobile: +27 (0)82 656 5601
Mailto: [email protected]
Figure 1: Percentage Time-in-State metric vs. Production Rate
November/December 2012 | 61
Amethyst, a variety of quartz, is an example
of a mineral (Wikipedia)
Acronyms
CIO Chief Information Officer
OEE Overall Equipment Effectiveness
COO Chief Operations Officer
DCS Distributed Control System
DPM Dynamic Performance Management
GMP Good Manufacturing Practices
HMI Human-Machine Interface
HSE Health, Safety and Environment
PGM Platinum Group Metal
ROM Run Of Mine
SCADA Supervisory Control And Data
Acquisition
SOP Standard Operating Procedure
Beneficiation – The process of extracting
valuable metals or minerals from ore.
Dynamic Performance Management – An
approach towards process measurement
that will empower the people responsible for
the success of that process to use their own
initiatives in making the right decisions for its
continuous and incremental improvement.
Metal - A metal is an element, compound
or alloy that is a good conductor of both
electricity and heat. Metals are usually
malleable, ductile and shiny. In a metal,
atoms readily lose electrons to form positive
ions (cations). Those ions are surrounded by
de-localised electrons, which are responsible
for the conductivity. The solid thus produced
is held together by electrostatic interactions
between the ions and the electron cloud,
which are called metallic bonds.
Metals are sometimes described as an
arrangement of positive ions surrounded
by a sea of delocalised electrons. Metals
occupy the bulk of the periodic table, while
Metals, Minerals and Mining dictionary
non-metallic elements can only be found
on its right-hand side (with the exception
of hydrogen). A diagonal line, drawn from
boron (B) to polonium (Po), separates the
metals from the non-metals. Most elements
on this line are metalloids, sometimes
called semiconductors. This is because
these elements exhibit electrical properties
common to both conductors and insulators.
Elements to the lower left of this division
line are called metals, while elements to the
upper right of the division line are called
non-metals.
Mineral - A mineral is a naturally-occurring
substance that is solid and stable at room
temperature, which can be represented by a
chemical formula, which is usually abiogenic
and has an ordered atomic structure. It
is different from a rock, which can be an
aggregate of minerals or non-minerals
and does not have a specific chemical
composition. There are over 4,900 known
mineral species. The silicate minerals
compose over 90% of the Earth’s crust.
The diversity and abundance of mineral
types is controlled by the Earth’s chemistry.
Silicon and oxygen constitute approximately
75% of the Earth’s crust, which translates
directly into the predominance of silicate
minerals. Minerals are distinguished by
various chemical and physical properties.
Differences in chemical composition and
crystal structure distinguish various types
and these properties in turn are influenced
by the mineral’s geological environment of
formation.
Platinum Group Metals (PGMs) - Platinum
Group Metals include platinum; iridium;
osmiridium; palladium; rhodium; ruthenium
and osmium.
Properties of platinum group metals:
PGMs are chemically very similar. Platinum,
iridium and osmium are the densest known
metals, platinum being 11 per cent denser
Metals, Minerals and Mining dictionary
62 | www.protocolmag.co.za
than gold and about twice the weight of the
same volume of silver or lead. Palladium,
rhodium and ruthenium are lighter,
palladium having about the same density
as silver.
Platinum and palladium are soft, ductile and
resistant to oxidation and high temperature
corrosion. They have widespread catalytic
uses. In industry they are often used with
the addition of other metals, including other
PGM.
Rhodium and Iridium are difficult to work,
but are valuable alone as well as in alloys.
Their chemical compounds have many uses,
and rhodium is a particularly good catalyst.
Ruthenium and Osmium are hard, brittle and
almost unworkable in the metallic state, with
poor oxidation resistance, but are valuable
as additions to other metals, usually other
PGM, and as catalysts.
Platinum - South Africa, with vast platinum
ore deposits in the Merensky Reef of the
Bushveld complex, is the world’s largest
producer of platinum, followed by Russia.
Platinum and palladium are also mined
commercially from the Stillwater igneous
complex in Montana, USA.
Osmium is a naturally occurring alloy of
iridium and osmium found in platinum-
bearing river sands in the Ural Mountains
and in North and South America. Trace
amounts of osmium also exist in nickel-
bearing ores found in the Sudbury, Ontario
region along with other platinum group
metals. Even though the quantity of
platinum metals found in these ores is small,
the large volume of nickel ores processed
makes commercial recovery possible.
Iridium is found with platinum and other
PGMs in alluvial deposits. Naturally
occurring iridium alloys include osmiridium
and iridiosmium, both of which are mixtures
of iridium and osmium. It is recovered
commercially as a by-product from nickel
mining and processing.
Ruthenium is generally found in ores with
the other PGMs in the Ural Mountains
and in North and South America. Small
but commercially important quantities are
also found in pentlandite extracted from
Sudbury, Ontario and in pyroxenite deposits
in South Africa.
Rhodium - The industrial extraction of
rhodium is complex as the metal occurs
in ores mixed with other metals such as
palladium, silver, platinum and gold. It is
found in platinum ores and obtained free as
a white inert metal which is very difficult to
fuse. Principal sources of this element are
located in river sands of the Ural Mountains,
in North and South America and also in the
copper-nickel sulphide mining area of the
Sudbury Basin region. Although the quantity
at Sudbury is very small, the large amount
of nickel ore processed makes rhodium
recovery cost effective. However, the annual
world production in 2003 of this element
is only 7 or 8 tons and there are very few
rhodium minerals.]
Palladium is found as a free metal and
alloyed with platinum and gold with PGMs
in placer deposits of the Ural Mountains
of Eurasia, Australia, Ethiopia, South and
North America. However it is commercially
produced from nickel-copper deposits found
in South Africa and Ontario, Canada. The
huge volume of nickel-copper ore processed
makes this extraction profitable in spite of its
low concentration in these ores.
Thin client – A low-cost terminal device
with no moving parts which relies on a
server for programme execution but which
offers localised capabilities such as access
to any data or application and which can
be linked to multiple displays, a keyboard/
mouse and CCTV equipment. Ideal for use
in environments hostile to PCs and where
instant replacement may be required. No
software maintenance is needed since this
happens at the server level.
Virtualisation - In computing, this is the
creation of a virtual (rather than actual)
version of something, such as a hardware
platform, operating system, a storage
device or network resources. It’s a concept
in which access to a single underlying piece
of hardware (like a server) is coordinated so
that multiple guest operating systems can
share that single piece of hardware with
no guest operating system being aware
that it is actually sharing anything. In short,
virtualisation allows for two or more virtual
computing environments on a single piece
of hardware that may be running different
operating systems and decouples users,
operating systems and applications from
physical hardware.
Workflow – A systematic and human-level
process for detecting, responding to and
resolving abnormal events (usually) but can
be applied to any task.
November/December 2012 | 63
Events: X-CHANGE 2013
X-CHANGE is your definitive window to
the industrial automation and information
landscape and brings together more
industry professionals than any other event
of its kind in Southern Africa. System
integrators, hardware and software suppliers,
end-users and international industrial
automation authorities come together to
X-CHANGE ideas, network and collaborate
at what is widely regarded as South Africa’s
premier industrial event.
More than twenty years ago, the world’s first
Windows-based HMI, InTouch, took its first
step into a world it would come to dominate.
Notably, few of the other technologies
that will be presented at X-CHANGE 2013
existed at the time either in fact or even as
wishful thinking.
X-CHANGE has been there at every step
of this extraordinary evolution, bringing
practical solutions to the South African
mining and manufacturing industries who
have responded by making it the longest
running and most successful event of its type
in the region.
Today, X-CHANGE is more relevant than
ever. Come and see how others are coping
with erratic market demands and what’s
the next step to keeping profitable in a
world that is changing at an alarming rate?
That’s why X-CHANGE looks at the bigger
picture of business challenges as well as the
supportive technologies and approaches
necessary to overcome them.
In this landmark year of its long history,
X-CHANGE 2013 will be host to the
entire range of Invensys Operations
Management range of solutions thereby
appealing to a much wider audience
and demonstrating that “sensor to
boardroom” is no longer a cliché but a
reality.
Celebrating the conference’s 21st anniversary, X-CHANGE 2013 will be held from 21st to 24th April at Sun City and promises to once again add great value to the lives of industrial automation professionals country-wide.
So, we invite everyone who has something
to share or something they want to learn
to X-CHANGE 2013. If you’ve never been
to X-CHANGE before, you’re in for a most
pleasant and informative surprise. If you’re
a regular, on the other hand, we don’t have
to sell you on the idea and welcome you
back.
X-CHANGE 2013 presentation streams
The presentation streams have been
designed to highlight and address the
information needs of executives, system
engineers, production managers, plant
managers and engineers involved in the
mining and manufacturing industries. That’s
because they all need different information
in the right context and at the right time – all
the time.
The contents of the presentations range
from technical to more business-oriented
and you can choose those best suited to
your current operational or business needs.
Technology Stream
Every year, Invensys Operations
Management introduces new and significant
products to its wide range of solutions.
This is your opportunity to see what these
products will do for your bottom line as
the presentations highlight the features,
advantages and benefits of each solution as
applicable to your industry. This year, there
are significant functionality upgrades and
enhancements to your favourite applications
as well as some new ones that continue to
populate the Invensys InFusion enterprise
control system space.
Solutions Stream
The solutions stream takes a broader look
at ways of addressing your enterprise
manufacturing intelligence needs,
improving asset effectiveness, streamlining
your manufacturing execution system
for operational performance excellence,
getting you started on the road to enterprise
integration, empowering your workforce,
corporate energy management and other
topics on which the health of your enterprise
depends.
Events: X-CHANGE 2013
64 | www.protocolmag.co.za
Ecosystem Stream
No one company can do it all. The range of
information and other solutions necessary
to ensure the profitable operation of
companies involved in the manufacturing
or mining sectors is truly staggering. That’s
why Invensys Operations Management
forms partnerships with other industry
professionals to provide end-users with
the best possible combination of solutions
available today.
Even the world’s leading supplier of
industrial automation information solutions
needs help and Invensys finds it by working
closely with selected software partners.
These industry professionals with proven
track records provide the tools and support
needed for the development of value-
added applications that integrate with or
complement Invensys Solutions.
From system integrators to software
developers and hardware suppliers, the list
of Ecosystem partners is growing rapidly and
this is their opportunity of showing you what
they have to offer.
Vertical Industry Stream
These presentations demonstrate how
all of the above solutions are applied to
address the needs of vertical industries
such as mining, manufacturing, food and
beverage, utilities, etc. This stream will also
feature user presentations compiled by
end-users, their system integrators or both
allowing you to determine “from the horse’s
mouth” if Invensys Wonderware products
performed as it said on the tin and how they
helped end-users achieve their business and
operational goals.
Invensys Operations Management Stream
From valves to virtualisation and from
sensors to simulation, Invensys Operations
Management does it all. Invensys
Wonderware is only one of nine Invensys
Operations Management business units, so
it’s no wonder that the range of solutions
available to you has grown phenomenally
and very rapidly since the company started
operations in South Africa in 2011.
This stream will demonstrate how hardware
and software solution from Avantis,
Eurotherm, Foxboro, InFusion, SimSci-
Esscor Skelta and Triconex all contribute to
providing a seamless information continuum
from sensor to boardroom.
Keynote Speakers
We are fortunate in having access to some
of the leading local and international
authorities on subjects as far ranging as how
to survive profitably in the current world
economic climate to the adoption of new
approaches to information and control in
mining and manufacturing. Once they leave
their pedestals, you can have casual chats
with them or book sessions where you have
the chance of discussing your production
and business issues one-on- one.
Their wide and varied industry experience
will save you from reinventing the wheel and
cut through complexity to give you fresh,
practical insights that you can apply when
you get back to the office.
November/December 2012 | 65
Invensys Operations Management Open and user presentations
We have found that one of the most valuable
ways to assess a product and its suitability
is to speak to the people who use it. The
Invensys Operations Management Open
was introduced to encourage both end users
and system integrators to document their
experiences of successful implementations
using Invensys Wonderware solutions. These
are customers who have used the products
extensively and their first hand experiences
offer insights not available from any other
source.
All user presentations are entered into the
Invensys Operations Management Open
competition where prizes are awarded
for the best presentations in various
categories. The presentations are then
documented in the form of articles and,
after approval, sent to various magazines
for publication. These articles also appear
on the Invensys Wonderware web site and
bi-monthly Protocol magazine as well as
Invensys Operations Management’s annual
international booklet of success stories.
Delegates whose presentations are
accepted for X-CHANGE automatically
qualify to attend the conference free of
charge!
(If you are interested in submitting a
presentation, please see the booking
information below.)
Expo
System integrators as well as hardware and
software partners use this unique venue to
showcase their wares and achievements.
They do so because nowhere else is there
such an opportunity to talk to a more
qualified audience eager to see what they
have to offer.
(Should you wish to exhibit your solutions,
please see the booking information below.)
Hands-on training
At X-CHANGE 2013 you can look forward
to practical hands-on training sessions
where you get to test-drive the products for
yourself. These practical sessions will allow
you to evaluate how and where they may
best be applied in your environment.
Spouse programme
Such conferences are always better
when shared with your partner – who
may, however, not share your enthusiasm
regarding the benefits of advanced
technology. That’s why a rich programme of
entertainment has been planned for your
partner ranging from sporting activities to
sightseeing and game-spotting (depending
on the venue) among many other events.
On-line bookings
Visit www.x-change.co.za if you want to do
any of the following:
• Book your attendance at X-CHANGE 2013
• Book a stand at the Expo
• Enter the Invensys Operations
Management Open and have a chance of
attending the conference free of charge
by doing a presentation and providing
enough material for us to write a success
story of the implementation of Invensys
Wonderware solutions in an interesting
application
Ask anyone who has ever attended X-CHANGE in the last 20 years –
you won’t be disappointed – and neither were they!
Events: X-CHANGE 2013
66 | www.protocolmag.co.za
Season’s greetingsThe management and staff of EOH and Invensys Operations Management Southern Africa wish you and your family the compliments of the season. We hope your holidays will be relaxing and enjoyable and that 2013 will bring you health and prosperity.
November/December 2012 | 67
Events - MESA SA “Adapt or Die” 2012 Conference
Services
and Support
68 | www.protocolmag.co.za
Invensys Sentinel ServicesIn a Nutshell ...
Invensys offers advanced remote services
technology that enhances our ability to
deliver higher availability and reliability of
plant assets to your company.
Key benefi ts
• Increased uptime
• Frees you to focus on looking after
production rather than control systems
Key features
• 24/7/365 remote monitoring and
notifi cation of issues
• Detect and rectify issues or problems
before they become mission-affecting
• Provide better management of system
resources to improve asset performance
• Streamline diagnosis process
• Fast and systematic event resolution
eliminates trial and error and cuts costs
• Clear and regular reports provide insight
into possible improvements
Who’s supervising the supervisors?
You trust your Invensys Wonderware
Industrial IT solutions to supervise your
wealth-creating processes but who’s
supervising them? Let Invensys Sentinel
Services (ISS) be your SCADA’s SCADA
by remotely and constantly monitoring
and reporting 24/7 on the KPIs of your
Wonderware-based systems so that
potential problems can be nipped in the
bud. This will give you the peace of mind
you need to focus on improving your
company’s bottom line rather than looking
after systems.
Using technology to provide world-class support
Peak performance in our operating plants is a
continuous process that is being threatened
on a daily basis. As skills scarcity increases,
most production technicians are stretched
to the limit with their daily tasks. Little time is
left to maintain the running software systems
and very few can fi nd the time to develop and
maintain specialist knowledge to diagnose
faults on these systems.
As a result, Invensys offers ISS whose job is
to monitor the performance of your Invensys
Wonderware assets — continuously.
We achieve this by installing special “agent
software” on each Wonderware server
located at your sites. These agents monitor
the system on a 24x7 basis to ensure that
critical resources are performing within best
practice norms.
If an unacceptable threshold is reached, an
alarm is raised and Invensys engineers are
alerted before an issue develops. Remote
connectivity is also designed to ensure
that, if there is a problem, Invensys experts
can work with you to make appropriate
adjustments to correct the issue and return
your system to normal operation quickly and
easily.
The process
Our event management system monitors
anomalies or events that occur in the
Wonderware customer environment and
focuses on detecting issues and generating
meaningful notifi cations. These notifi cations
are reported to the Invensys Command
Centre which offers a single point of contact
for customer incidents and requests.
Reporting
A key aspect of Invensys Sentinel Services is
feedback to you. As a result, we ensure that
we provide monthly system health status
reports which include:
• Overall health status for the month
• Critical, major, medium and minor system
issues and errors for that month
• Changes or corrections made to fi x
errors that occurred in the Wonderware
environment
November/December 2012 | 69
• Proposals for Wonderware system
modifications to ensure that the system
conforms to best practice standards
Monitored events
Monitoring includes examining the KPIs
of the Wonderware System Platform and
Historian, hardware performance, event logs,
Wonderware machines (where applicable)
among others. There is also a monthly audit
of OS, Windows and Wonderware version
control, Wonderware licence status, IP
configuration and more.
Optional value-added services
• Anti-virus reporting
• Wonderware and Microsoft patch
management
• Operating system platform support
Contact us
For more information please contact:
Zaine Domingo, ISS Product Manager —
Invensys Operations Management
T +27 (0)11 607 8191 | 0800 INVENSYS |
Invensys Sentinel Services
70 | www.protocolmag.co.za
Customer FIRSTIn a nutshell ...
Comprehensive Services
Customer FIRST is not just technical
support, it’s a comprehensive
programme to help you manage your
systems and protect your investments.
Real Value
Customer FIRST members enjoy the
many benefits of a closer collaborative
relationship with Invensys.
• Responsive services
• Depth of expertise
• Proactive planning
• Continuous performance monitoring
• Emergency contingency provisioning
• Deep discounts on hardware
• Software and services
These important elements make the
Customer FIRST membership an
essential part of your business success.
Maximise asset performance
Downtime costs businesses millions of Rand
- Customer FIRST support gives you options
to maximise productivity by keeping your
operations running smoothly.
Outages, both planned and unplanned,
are costly; businesses increasingly need to
employ effective pre-emptive strategies
to reduce risks and employ efficient and
effective resourcing strategies to ensure that
non-productive time is kept to a minimum.
Customer FIRST is not just technical support,
it’s a comprehensive programme to help
you manage your systems and maximise the
performance of your assets.
Downtime hurts - Customer FIRST can help
Even the most reliable equipment requires
downtime, perhaps for routine maintenance,
preventative maintenance, upgrades or
replacement. You need to ensure that
downtime is kept to a minimum and to
ensure that there is minimal production loss
as a result.
• Customer FIRST provides you with
access to great hardware maintenance,
software maintenance and comprehensive
lifecycle management services to help
you optimise your planned downtime and
minimise unplanned downtime events.
Recovery time is critical and any delays
in acquiring either replacement parts, or
the expertise required to quickly resolve
problems, can have a significant financial
impact on your business.
• Customer FIRST provides you with timely
access to critical spare parts with the
ability to manage spares more easily and
ensure the reliability of your systems.
What’s more, extended downtime presents
other risks to your business such as failing
to meet contractual obligations to your
customers and the loss of business that
may ensue.
• Customer FIRST also gives you access
to Invensys technical resources to
help you ensure that your system is
back to capacity in as short a time as
possible. Our world-class global service
organisation is available locally, so the
help you need is never far away.
Asset performance is not just about
maximising availability though; you need
to ensure that your assets are working to
their maximum potential. You also need
to minimise the risk to your business of
missed schedules, poor quality or regulatory
violations, with the business consequences
that may follow.
Customer FIRST gives you proactive remote
health monitoring services to spot warning
signs before problems occur and advanced
consulting services to tune your systems to
maximum performance.
Customer first – our mission: your success
Customer FIRST membership gives you
access to award-winning technical support,
hardware and software maintenance
services, lifecycle management and remote
Services, training and consulting services
and much more. The programme provides
you with comprehensive services and flexible
options to choose exactly the right kind of
programme to suit your business needs and
help you to maximise asset performance.
Contact information
Support Telephone Number:
0861-WONDER (0861-966337) or
0800-INVENSYS (Toll Free)
E-mail: [email protected] or
November/December 2012 | 71
2013 Training Schedule(Johannesburg)
NOTE:
The dates shown apply to training
at our offi ces in Bedfordview,
Johannesburg. Regional training is
presented on demand. A minimum of
six delegates is required to arrange
a course.
Regional training venues:
Durban: Khaya Lembali,
Morningside.
Cape Town: Durbanville Conference
Centre.
Port Elizabeth: Pickering Park
Conference Centre, Newton Park.
i Did you know that your bottom line is directly proportional to the effectiveness of your workforce?
2013 Training Schedule
As the owner of some of the world’s
most popular, advanced and versatile
industrial automation, information and
MES software solutions, you’ll want to
get the most from your investment and
that includes getting the best training
in the business. We routinely train about
600 professionals like you every year not
only on how to use our solutions but how
to turn our product features into real
business benefits.
InTouch Part 1 Fundamentals (includes New Graphics)
• 28 January – 1 February
• 25 February – 1March
• 27 – 31 May
• 1 – 5 July
• 29 July – 2 August
InTouch Part 2 Advanced (includes New Graphics)
• 4 – 7 March
• 3 –6 June
• 8 – 11 July
System Platform – Application Server (includes new graphics)
• 21 – 25 January
• 18 – 22 February
• 11 – 15 March
• 6 – 10 May
• 24 – 28 June
• 22 – 26 July
Historian (includes Historian Client)
• 11 – 14 February
• 13 – 16 May
• 18 – 21 June
• 19 – 22 August
InBatch
• 4 – 8 February
Bundled courses
In addition to the above, we offer the
following bundled courses at reduced rates:
For maintenance and engineering personnel:
• InTouch only (includes InTouch
Fundamentals and InTouch Advanced)
• InTouch and Historian (includes InTouch
Fundamentals, InTouch Advanced and
Historian)
• System Platform – Application Server
(includes InTouch Fundamentals, InTouch
Advanced, Historian, System Platform and
Application Server)
For system integrators:
• System Platform – Application Server
(includes InTouch Fundamentals, InTouch
Advanced, Historian, System Platform and
Application Server)
For non-technical personnel (operators, managers, supervisors):
• Historian (includes ActiveFactory basics
for non-technical staff)
For all your training requirements, contact
Emmi du Preez at
[email protected] or call
Emmi on 011 607 8286.
72 | www.protocolmag.co.za
Use Protocol Magazine to generate business opportunitiesProtocol magazine continues to be well
received on a bi-monthly basis by 6500
industry professionals like you, at every
level of the country’s leading mining
and manufacturing companies. You can
leverage this highly-qualified readership
to be heard.
How do you promote yourself right now?
Some of the things you might be doing
could include inserting opinion pieces,
adverts, editorials and other material
into South Africa’s leading manufacturing
and mining magazines. A good choice
since these are excellent and professional
publications that land on decision-makers’
desks every month.
What Protocol offers is all the advantages
of a professional magazine with a large
circulation but the cherry on the cake is
that all the readers of Protocol have one
thing in common – Wonderware solutions
in the areas of SCADA, MES, EMI, BPM and
enterprise integration – in fact, anything to
do with industrial and corporate production
IT. Everything in Protocol is aimed at helping
end users get more from their Wonderware
investment and trigger them to look at new
possibilities. Nobody wants to reinvent a
costly development or investigation wheel
and what you have to offer will go a long way
to stopping that happening.
Let’s think for a minute about your perfect
promotion vehicle and what it should do for
you:
• It must convey your message in a
professional manner to a large, targeted
and qualified audience
• It must generate incremental business (if
you’re a solution supplier) or recognition
(if you’re an end-user)
• It must generate market awareness of
your capabilities
• It must do all that at a reasonable cost
Protocol magazine meets all these criteria.
If you’re an end-user, your stakeholders are
most interested to know how well you’re
looking after their interests by lowering costs
and improving efficiency. Your colleagues
in the industry are keen to see how you’ve
implemented Wonderware solutions so that
they can evaluate if these will have the same
benefits in their environments.
If you’re a system integrator, end-users
want to know what you’ve done so that they
can consider you as a solution supplier for
their next project.
If you’re a hardware or software vendor,
end-users and system integrators want to
know about how well your offerings work
in the Wonderware environment and how
they can help them do a better and more
cost-effective job.
What medium will work best for you?
Success stories:
They won’t cost you a cent and you don’t
have to write them. Simply send an e-mail
to your account manager stating that you
have the makings of a good story and why
you think it is so. You will then be sent a
Guideline and a Permission to Publish form
to complete and return.
The Guideline is in the form of prompts to
which you supply the answers to the best of
your ability. This, together with the graphical
information required, will be used to write
the article which will be sent back to you for
editing, approval, etc.
The Permission to Publish form must be
signed by the end-user of the installation
and system integrator / solution vendor
(if applicable) before work on the article is
started. This ensures that all the work that
goes into compiling the story will not be
wasted.
You are free to use the completed success
story in any marketing sense you wish and
you have hundreds of examples on our
web site and in past issues of A2ware and
FutureLinx.
Opinion Pieces:
Once again, there’s no cost involved and
you don’t have to worry about probably
not having majored in English. Decide on a
central theme and the idea(s) you want to
put across, then jot down all the reinforcing
arguments you can think of (as well as
references if applicable). Also include any
supporting graphics you feel will better
illustrate the point.
Send your draft article to your account manager
and, if necessary, we’ll make the necessary edits
before returning it to you for approval.
Comments to the editor, Q&As, Product and/or service information:
Send your submissions to Denis your
account manager and they (as well as the
November/December 2012 | 73
Use Protocol Magazine to generate business opportunities
i Did you know that if you don’t talk to anyone, they’re not likely to talk to you or send orders?
answers) will be published in the next issue
(if interesting and relevant).
Material formats
Text – In Microsoft Word format
Graphics – In PowerPoint, Bitmap or JPEG
format (the last two in the highest possible
resolution you have)
Advertising:
For all your advertising requirements –
including the drafting of effective adverts
from scratch – contact Heather Simpkins at
The Marketing Suite.
So what are we really saying?
As an end-user or supplier of Invensys
Wonderware and associated solutions, you
form part of the world’s largest ecosystem
of professionals in the fi elds of industrial
automation and the delivery of actionable
intelligence from the shop fl oor to the top
fl oor.
That makes you pretty special.
That makes what you have to say signifi cant
and important.
In other words, what you have to say matters
and we have made it as easy as possible for
you to say it!
You will be talking to people with the same
reality as you and who have the same
problems and concerns.
So, what we’re really saying is, use Protocol
magazine to say what you believe needs
to be said.
74 | www.protocolmag.co.za
On the lighter sideOne-upmanship
German scientists dug 50 metres
underground and discovered small pieces
of copper. After studying these pieces for
a long time, Germany announced that the
ancient Germans 25,000 years ago had a
nation-wide telephone network.
Naturally, the British government was not
that easily impressed. They ordered their
own scientists to dig even deeper. 100
metres down, they found small pieces of
glass, and they soon announced that the
ancient Brits 35,000 years ago already had a
nation-wide fibre net.
Israeli scientists were outraged. They dug 50,
100 and 200 metres underground, but found
absolutely nothing...
They concluded that the ancient Hebrews,
55,000 years ago, had cell phones.
Getting to grips with new technology
I was visiting my son and daughter-in-law
last night when I asked if I could borrow a
newspaper.
‘This is the 21st century, old man,’ he said.
‘We don’t waste money on newspapers.
Here, you can borrow my iPad.’
That bloody fly never knew what hit it ....
Doggone
A man was leaving a convenience store with
his morning coffee when he noticed a most
unusual funeral procession approaching
the nearby cemetery. A black hearse was
followed by a second black hearse about 50
Feet behind the first one. Behind the second
hearse was a solitary man walking a dog on
a leash. Behind him, a short distance back,
were about 200 men walking single file. The
man couldn’t hold back his curiosity any
longer.
He respectfully approached the man walking
the dog and said, “I am so sorry for your
loss, and this may be a bad time to disturb
you, but I’ve never seen a funeral like this.
“Whose funeral is it?”
“My wife’s.”
‘’What happened to her?”
The man replied, “She yelled at me and my
dog attacked and killed her.”
He inquired further, “But who is in the
second hearse?”
The man answered, “My mother-in-law. She
was trying to help my wife when the dog
turned on her.”
A very poignant and touching moment of
brotherhood and silence passed between
the two men.
“Can I borrow the dog?”
The man replied, “Get in line.”
British humour
An Irishman had no idea his wife was having
an affair, so he was mad with grief when
coming home early one day he surprised her
and her lover in the act. He grabbed a pistol
and pointed it at his head, which made his
wife burst out laughing.
“What do you think you’re laughing at,” he
cried, “you’re next.”
•
At an auction in Manchester a wealthy
American announced that he had lost his
wallet containing £10,000 and would give a
reward of £100 to the person who found it.
From the back of the hall a Scottish voice
shouted, “I’ll give £150!”
•
A man walks into a doctor’s office. He has a
November/December 2012 | 75
• What’s another word for Thesaurus?
• When I get real bored, I like to drive
downtown and get a great parking spot,
then sit in my car and count how many
people ask me if I’m leaving.
• When I was crossing the border into
Canada, they asked if I had any firearms
with me. I said, “Well, what do you
need?”
• You can’t have everything. Where would
you put it?
• If you were going to shoot a mime, would
you use a silencer?
On the lighter side
cucumber up his nose, a carrot in his left ear
and a banana in his right ear. “What’s the
matter with me?” he asks the doctor. The
doctor replies, “You’re not eating properly.”
More wit from the pen of Steven Wright
• I bought some dehydrated water, but I
don’t know what to add to it.
• I invented the cordless extension cord.
• When I was little, my grandfather used to
make me stand in a closet for 5 minutes
without moving. He said it was elevator
practice.
• The other night I came home late and
tried to unlock my house with my car
keys. I started the house up. So, I drove
it around for a while. I was speeding, and
a cop pulled me over. He asked where I
lived. I said, “Right here, officer.”
• I saw a sign at a gas station. It said ‘help
wanted’. There was another sign below it
that said ‘self service’. So I hired myself.
Then I made myself the boss. I gave
myself a raise. I paid myself. Then I quit.
• A cop stopped me for speeding. He said,
“Why were you going so fast?” I said,
“See this thing my foot is on? It’s called an
accelerator. When you push down on it, it
sends more gas to the engine. The whole
car just takes right off. And see this thing
[mimes steering wheel]? This steers it.”
• Every so often, I like to go to the window,
look up and smile for a satellite picture.
• In Vegas, I got into a long argument with
the man at the roulette wheel over what I
considered to be an odd number.
• While I was gone, somebody rearranged
the furniture in my bedroom. They put it in
exactly the same place it was. When I told
my roommate, he said: “Do I know you?”
• Whenever I fill out an application, in the
part that says “If an emergency, notify:” I
put “DOCTOR”. What’s my mother going
to do?
• The problem with the gene pool is that
there is no lifeguard.
• When I have a kid, I want to buy one of
those strollers for twins. Then put the kid
in and run around, looking frantic. When
he gets older, I’d tell him he used to have
a brother, but he didn’t obey.
• I went to the hardware store to buy some
batteries, but they weren’t included, so I
had to buy them again.
• I had parked in the tow-away zone
and when I got back, the entire
neighbourhood was gone.
• I had a friend who was a clown. When he
died, all his friends went to the funeral in
one car.
• I once put instant coffee in a microwave
and went back in time.
• I got a dog and named him ‘Stay’. Now, I
say “Come here, Stay!” After a while the
dog went insane and wouldn’t move at all.
• I spilled spot remover on my dog. Now
he’s gone.
• I want to get a tattoo of myself on my
entire body, only 2 inches taller.
• I made wine out of raisins so I wouldn’t
have to wait for it to age.
• Right now I’m having amnesia and déjà-vu
at the same time. I think I’ve forgotten this
before.
• In my house there’s this light switch that
doesn’t do anything. Every so often I
would flick it on and off just to check.
Yesterday, I got a call from a woman in
Germany. She said, “cut it out!”
• I used to work in a fire hydrant factory. You
couldn’t park anywhere near the place.
• I went to the hardware store and bought
some used paint. It was in the shape of a
house.
• I went to the museum where they had all
the heads and arms from the statues that
are in all the other museums.
• It’s a small world, but I wouldn’t want to
have to paint it.
76 | www.protocolmag.co.za
Protocol Crossword #57
When you’ve completed the crossword, the letters in the coloured
boxes spell out what is mined at Sishen.
Note: This magazine contains the answers to a number of the clues.
E-mail your answer to: [email protected]. The sender of the
first correct answer received will get a hamper of Invensys Wonderware
goodies.
Clues across: 1. What this issue of Protocol is about (6)
7. What is mined by 33 across at Marikana (8)
12. Not the outside (8)
14. Real-time Event Notification (3)
15. Indefinite article (2)
16. Non Fiction (2)
17. A central _____________ room makes the best use of
a company’s knowledge resources (11)
21. Slippery fishes (4)
23. Gradually got warmer (9)
25. Rolls Royce (2)
26. Movement for African independence (especially in
Kenya) which translates to “freedom” in Swahili (5)
28. Alternative Network (2)
29. Pertaining to the environment (10)
33. One of the world’s largest primary producers of
Platinum Group Metals (6)
37. Victory in Europe day (2)
38. Universal Entrance (examination) (2)
39. The process of extracting minerals from ore (13)
46. Royal Society (2)
47. To forcibly evict the opposition, for example (4)
48. To speak at length and pompously (5)
49. Of paramount importance to all mining enterprises
(6,3,6)
52. Japanese city (5)
53. International Common Denomination (medicines) (3)
54. Farm machinery manufacturer initially (2)
56. Paid (abbr.) (2)
57. Laugh Out Loud (3)
60. ROM mills are best controlled by one of these (6,6)
64. Father (2)
66. Applied Information Technology (3)
67. That is (2)
68. Corrosive substance (4)
70. By coordinating the efforts of the right people,
workflow management helps to bring about swift _____
__________(5,10)
74. Product of combustion (5)
75. You can use one when shopping at a supermarket,
for example (7)
Clues down:1. Copper and zinc, for example (8)
2. Raging fire (7)
3. Windows® operating system (2)
4. That is (2)
5. National Rescue Institute (3)
6. Alcoholic spirit flavoured with juniper berries (3)
7. Lowering this is a key item on any mine’s agenda
(10,5)
8. If you had one, there would be nothing else you
could carry (6)
9. Sad rip? (4)
10. Preposition (4)
11. One of the places that horse hair comes from (4)
13. Denotes “belonging to” (2)
18. Regarding (2)
19. Exists (2)
20. Of the ear (4)
22. About everything that is of the warm season (8)
24. A valley (4)
27. Rhenium symbol (2)
30. Eggs (3)
31. What the lady of the night said to her client the next
morning (3,3)
32. Father’s sister (familiar) (5)
34. Nota Bene (2)
35. The ten commandments are said to have been cast
__ ____ (2,5)
36. Neon symbol (20
40. Those things that can make one the victim of things
(9)
41. Like a teddy bear (6)
42. The thing’s (3)
43. Anger (3)
44. Good for horses and humans (4)
45. Crystals found inside a rock, for example, (5)
49. Hydrostatic Test Pressure (3)
50. With 47, it’s deadly (2)
51. Novice (7)
55. It is carried (4)
58. Electronic, inter-personal communication (1-4)
59. Backbone (5)
61. They come with pots (4)
62. Uncommon (4)
63. It’s removed by dredgers (4)
65. Overall Equipment Effectiveness
(3)
69. Mountain pass (3)
71. Each (abbr.) (2)
72. Thorium symbol (2)
73. Preposition (2)
Answer to Protocol crossword #56:
Question: Because of the reversible
nature of its implementation, Foxboro’s
I/A Series DCS presents ___ _____ to
your migration plans.
Answer: NO RISK
Achieving competitive and efficient process plant operation is an increasingly tough challenge in today’s fast moving business environment.
Measurement Under Control
Selecting the most reliable and longest life measurement instrumentation is more important than ever. Invensys Foxboro offers time proven innovative measurement solutions that make this possible, leading the way with longer life pH, redox and conductivity measurement sensors and instrumentation.
View our full range of measurement tools and instrumentation at:
www.invensys.co.za or call 0800 INVENSYS for more information
When market tastes change.You’ll be ready.
Monday Tuesday Wednesday
Thursday Friday Saturday
Flexibly manage change, while maintaining product quality, consistency and safety with Wonderware MES software. For more information, visit wonderware.com/FlexibleMES and get a free whitepaper called “Be ready for changing tastes, a new approach to plant software”.
© Copyright 2012. All rights reserved. Invensys, the Invensys logo, Avantis, Eurotherm, Foxboro, IMServ, InFusion, Skelta, SimSci-Esscor, Triconex and Wonderware are trademarks of Invensys plc, its subsidiaries or affiliates. All other brands and product names may be trademarks of their respective owners.
INV-350 MES_Cola-WW-A4.indd 1 9/11/12 1:02 PM
When market tastes change.You’ll be ready.
Monday Tuesday Wednesday
Thursday Friday Saturday
Flexibly manage change, while maintaining product quality, consistency and safety with Wonderware MES software. For more information, visit wonderware.com/FlexibleMES and get a free whitepaper called “Be ready for changing tastes, a new approach to plant software”.
© Copyright 2012. All rights reserved. Invensys, the Invensys logo, Avantis, Eurotherm, Foxboro, IMServ, InFusion, Skelta, SimSci-Esscor, Triconex and Wonderware are trademarks of Invensys plc, its subsidiaries or affiliates. All other brands and product names may be trademarks of their respective owners.
INV-350 MES_Cola-WW-A4.indd 1 9/11/12 1:02 PM
0800 INVENSYS | [email protected] | iom.invensys.co.za
Flexibly manage change, while maintaining product quality, consistency and safety withWonderware MES software. For more information, visit wonderware.com/FlexibleMES and get a free whitepaper called “Be ready for changing tastes, a new approach to plant software”.