The value of Remote Operating Centers (ROC)
Fabio Fortes *, Eduardo Valente & Constantino
SeixasAccenture do Brasil, So Paulo, Brasil, Project
ManagerAccenture Chile, Santiago, Chile, Senior ManagerAccenture do
Brasil, Belo Horizonte, Brasil, Managing DirectorABSTRACT
Remote Operating Centre (ROC) is a collaborative environment
organized to gather all necessary resources (people, technology and
methodology) for decision making targeting operational improvement.
The value of a ROC lies in broadening the scope beyond the
operating room (traditional process control and monitoring room)
and move into strategic and tactical management. ROC is about a
single point of truth and how to use information to leverage a
better decision making process.
In almost every business there are pressures driving to an ROC
solution and in mining it is not different. External forces like:
environment regulation pressure to reduce human footprint into
mining exploiting areas, pressure to demonstrates full control of
all production aspects including EHS (Environmental, Health and
Safety), production chain optimization, centralized asset
management, among others are few examples of driving forces that
are reshaping mining and show the need of ROC.
Building a ROC does not mean to transfer people to a new room
plenty of fancy technologies. ROC implementation demands a lot of
efforts, corresponds to a project with an implementation cycle
stratified in waves associated to a continuous improvement program
in which specialists learn with the analytic information obtained
and define best practices. It is up to the ROC processes to
transform information into action. If there is no continuous
improvement process in place and automation that supports its,
information will lose its transformation potential.
How can a ROC apply to mining and what are the potential
benefits? What kind of processes may take place in an ROC? What is
a natural roadmap evolution for an ROC implementation and
sustainability? What are automation / technologies role? These are
a few set of questions that this article discusses. ROC can achieve
all the programmed benefits if all care is taken.
Keywords: ROC, ROI, Business case, ROC challenges, ROCs
benefitsINTRODUCTION
A Remote Operating Center embeds two notions that are not always
true. First it tells us that the center is remote to the plant.
This is almost always true. One of the motivations of having a
mining operations center is to be able to maintain human resources
away from a harsh environment. The first objective is safety and
the second is to be able to attract and retain talents. Not every
student graduating from an engineering school wants to be distant
from big cities that offer the entire infrastructure to raise a
family and to maintain updated.
The second notion that seems to be not perfect is that the main
objective of the center is to operate the plant. In most ROC case
the initial objective is exactly that, to have operators sharing a
single collaborative environment, but this corresponds only to the
initial stage of a ROC. As maturity evolves ROC will be in charge
of several other processes like production planning, fleet
management, condition based maintenance, and other asset management
specialties, process, assets and production performance analytics,
logistics and many other functions.The evolution of ROC is
illustrated in the figure 1.
Figure 1 ROC Maturity EvolutionIf the ROC does not fit all
situations, it is possible to use alternative names such as
Integrated Operating Center, Intelligent Logistics Center,
Integrated Maintenance Center and Integrated Production Management
Center. Names that involve the word intelligence can cause
resistance because those external to it can have a sentiment of
being excluded of the intelligent environment and this can be fatal
to ROC acceptance, and acceptance as it will be explained is
crucial to ROC results achievement and sustainability. Integrated
is a much better term. Irrespective of the name, there are outcomes
from implementing ROCs in other industries (oil & gas, energy,
defense, aerospace, etc.), that can also be expected into mining
business like:
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.
Current mining approach is local optimization and ROC will
contribute to change this mindset Increased of depth and breadth of
information, analyzed in an integrated and timely manner, leading
to more efficient operations reducing downtime and operational
costs Optimized production through more timely and accurate
operational information delivered to all levels of planning and
operations, regardless of location. ROC reinforces production chain
optimization, centralized asset management, benchmarking &
standardization 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. ROC best
practices determine that a fundamental project phase is the
development of a blueprint that will correspond to a conceptual
project defining ROC objectives, processes, blocks of
functionality, infrastructure and project phases. It is recommended
that the blueprint will also include a business case and will
determine how the results will be measured, achieved and most
important: sustained. ROC BlueprintWithout this first planning that
will conceive the ROC and sell the concept to all stakeholders, ROC
will in most case fail. The root cause of failure is not the
difficulty of building a fancy operating environment, but is the
alignment of the ROC process with the organization objectives. The
main blueprint definitions are:ROC objectives ROC motivation and
objectives need to be discussed with Coporate Level (C-level). To
measure ROC results it is fundamental to understand client
expectations. The main motivations could be: Improve people safety:
mines are hazardous areas and the roads leading to the mines are
risky, being shared with trucks, and other heavy vehicles Improve
attractiveness to hire specialists in better infrastructure
metropolitan areas
Reduce costs represented by creating a living infrastructure
close to the mines: houses, schools, roads, hospitals, etc. when we
reduce human footprint in the mines Standardize applications,
assets, interfaces and practice reducing TCO total cost of
ownership
Implement operational excellence managing performance KPIs in a
centralized way Share specialist between several mines and along
the supply chain
Reduce plant/line downtime
Integrate planning and execution. Plan to optimize and execute
as planned paradigm needs to be reinforced
Detect and observe bottlenecks to direct mitigation actions
Obtain better centralized overall planning from mine to port
Reduce maintenance costs replacing corrective maintenance by
predictive maintenance Implement benchmarking between plants and
defining best practices to be rolled out to all plants Implement
centralized process control performance management including
regulatory control and advanced process control
Implement process analytics to troubleshoot process problems
Reduce process variability with consequent production
variability
Improve collaboration between horizontal areas optimizing
production chain
Reduce head count and operating costs due to migration of people
from confined areas (underground mines)
Knowledge building, management and sharing
Implement a collaborative results oriented operating
structure
Etc.
ROC Infrastructure It defines ROC environment aspects like:
area, building location, floor area, floor layout, access control,
lighting, heating/air conditioning, floor specification, ceiling
specification, noise reduction systems, electric power
requirements, pods definitions including pod type (operation pod,
cooperation, collaboration, etc.), screens and input devices,
support areas: cafeteria, WCs, meeting rooms, crisis room,
collaboration rooms, contractors room, telecommunication
infrastructure, etc.ROC Processes Defines what will happen inside
ROC. If mine operations is one ROC process so the blueprint will
define one pod for the operation of each mine. If fleet management
is another process to be defined so another pod will be
defined.Governance Definition This is the most critical and also
the most neglected factor to the success of ROC. Who will lead ROC?
Who will lead the operations, maintenance, planning, quality and
other aspects of ROC? Because ROC is the cockpit of the full
organization, ROC also mimics the complexity of having an
integrated horizontal cooperating environment. This is not supposed
to be an easy task mainly because all mining organizations are
vertical silos. The organization hierarchy works vertically and in
ROC it is needed a horizontal orchestration. A good image to that
is the organization of a submarine or of a flight carrier. There
also people dedicated to maintenance to trip planning, to several
aspects of the ship journey. But during the battle it should behave
as a whole without hesitation following the orders of the captain.
Each one with its professional skill and with a local specialty
hierarchy but all synchronized by and under one commandant. ROC
governance definitions depend on company values and culture and it
is the most challenging activity. If some component of this power
chain thinks he is losing power or authority with the advent of ROC
a resistance will build. Continuity and Disaster Recover Analysis
This document discusses how a disastrous situation will be
mitigated. A failure in the main communication link can be solved
by a redundant link, but what to do if the union decided to promote
a strike, or if the main road to the mine is blocked? How to
maintain the essential services running?
Budget Definition Budget is defined with forty percent accuracy
in this phase. The applications and crew size will be only known in
the next phase.Change Management - Change management in this phase
means to communicate to all stakeholders the objectives of ROC and
to obtain their involvement in the process. Having people committed
depends on how much they identify ROC objectives as their personal
beliefs and objectives. Every people want to improve their work. Do
they recognize ROC will bring them the tools to work better and to
achieve their business goals? Are they aligned with global
organization objectives or only with their departmental short term
goals? Change management is a laborious activity, because it takes
time to understand how people are affected and what they think they
are losing with the ROC transformation. ROC is a good thing to most
of the collaborators, if correctly explained an understood.Basic
and Detailed Projects PhaseAfter the blueprint comes the basic and
detailed project phases where a deeper analysis is done and several
other aspects are defined. The final result will be the projects
detailed roadmap and a 10% accuracy budget. Some activities of
these phases are:
Applications definition For each management or operational
process applications need to be defined. Suppose that control loop
management is one of the processes selected. There are several
applications in the market from independent SW suppliers or MAC
Main Automation Contractor that can be used.
Crew definition For each pod a certain number of operators and
specialists are required. One of the advantages of ROC is that the
same set of specialists can be shared to all mines. Just as an
example, for control loop management a good practice is to have one
control specialist per mine and a control manage shared by all
mines in a hub, i.e. mines located in the same region.
Technical Architecture definition What is the subjacent ROC
network structure? How many servers will be necessary? Where will
servers be located? Is a data center necessary? Is redundant
communication infrastructure necessary? How centralized ROC
structure connects to the plant? What kind of network will be used?
What are the cybersecurity threats to be mitigated? Firewalls and
DMZs will be defined according to ISA 99.
Procedures Definition The methodology to operate/manage,
calculate KPIs, measure performance, mitigate problems,
debottleneck, improve plant behavior are defined for every
process/pod. This activity is neglected several times and the
result is that ROC has technology, applications but things do not
fit together and the teams do not cooperate. To streamline all team
inside a ROC eliminating natural silos existent outside ROC is
fundamental. Bring the silos to ROC and nothing different will
happen. ROC will become a fancy version of status quo.
People Transformation Mining specialist need to be transformed
before transposing ROCs gates. This means not only to be trained,
but to understand the new methodology and new way to cooperate with
the interfacing groups and mainly to have a new attitude after
being empowered by ROC. Mining specialist will have information as
they never thought to be possible. And they will need to transform
the insights into action. The condition to make business case
happen is this capacity to make an analysis and to troubleshoot the
plant operations to enhance its performance. ROC Implementation
ROC Implementation includes building ROC infrastructure,
installing equipment and applications, training operators, testing
commissioning, start-up and change management.Change management
like project management is a constant activity throughout the whole
project. After ROC implementation begins the business case
verification. As already explained, it can only be achieved if all
elements: technology, methodology and people are focused, and
governance is the main element related to people.In most ROC
implementations all over the world no business case was developed.
In some case it has been developed but not checked. When the
results are not observed an assessment of why the results are not
coming is necessary. In this phase it is important to observe
external benchmarks. If a company is not getting money out of
centralized control loop management for instance, why not to visit
another mining company that divulgate good results obtained with a
different methodology? Our experience shows that the main cause of
failure is not in the technology.
After ROC Implementation begins the ROC sustainability phase
that lasts forever. ROC is a program and not a collection of
projects.
ROC Success Factors
When analyzing ROC returns it is important to understand that
results are only achieved if a chain of activities are put in
place. If one of the three elements (as described below: figure 2)
is not balanced, results will not come. The results are not a given
of ROC implementation. It is necessary to work specifically to get
it.
Figure 2 ROC success factorsIn the list of possible benefits
there are statements like: establish the best practices and make
them effective for all the plants. This requires to measure the
results of a successful implementation, document the findings,
convince the other plants leadership that the same results can be
achieved in their environment and implement the leading practice.
If the ROCs leadership is the right arm of the general manager of
all mines in this hub, the embedded governance will make it
happens. If it is not, this simple algorithm will become impossible
to be put in practice. The other mines compete with the leading
mine and will tell leadership that their process is different and
that they do not believe the results were measured correctly, and
finally will reject the alien intervention. We can summarize this
idea in one statement: ROC is all about governance.
ROC Business Case
To develop a business case for a ROC implementation in mining it
is important to list all the business issues and opportunities, the
levers that affect them, the percentage of improvement and the
improvement value. With this information it is possible to build a
value tree.
Figure 3 ROC Benefits Tree
The improvements can be calculated in tons/year that is more
effective than translating to dollars, due to ore price
volatility.Figure 3 is just an overview of it is possible, but the
business case needs to be developed to a specific mine and to a
specific maturity level and operating condition.
Not all ROC process needs to be developed by plant personnel.
Part of the processes can be outsourced to more specialized
companies. Activities like APC (Advanced Process Control), control
loop optimization, material balance, rotating machinery monitoring,
can be hired as a service from specialized companies and managed by
the mining staff. Some contractors accept to commit results
according to the business plan after a plant assessment or due
diligence.ROC is also a structuring activity because it defines a
collaboration framework and forces a revision of all company
improvement programs and the alignment of production management to
the mine objectives. ROC will transform data in information, will
provide insights about the past (historian), the present (real
time) and the future (predictive analytics) as described in figure
4. All those information systems, simulators, plant models form an
arsenal of resources at disposal of a prepared new minded mining
engineer. Harvesting this information universe will enable the
promised gains.
Figure 4 Basic principles that support the ROCCONCLUsionAll the
leading mining companies in the world are implementing ROCs. Rio
Tintos and BHP ROCs in Australia are located in Perth 1350km away
from Pilbara where the mines are locates. Vale, Codelco and other
mining giants have ROC implementations. In every case ROC began as
an operating and control room centralization experience and as
maturity grows it branches incorporating more decision processes.
Most of the gain will come from level three applications and
advanced automation applications. A famous quote from Albert
Einstein defines insanity: doing the same thing over and over again
and expecting different results." We cannot achieve different
results in just translating the very old practices to the new
modern ROC environment. The value will come from the processes
transformation that is a companion of ROC implementation. The
complexity resides in focusing all these success factors
altogether. It requires a deep expertise in all the aspects of the
game. NOMENCLATURe
APCAdvanced Process ControlDMZDemilitarized ZoneEHSEnvironment
Health and Safety
ISAInternational Society of Automation
KPIKey Performance Indicator
MACMain Automation Contractor
ROCRemote Operating CenterROI Return of InvestmentSWSoftware
TCOTotal Cost of OwnershipREFERENCES
ISA 95 Part 1 - Enterprise Control System Integration 1: Models
and terminology (ANSI/ISA-95.00.01-2010 (IEC 62264-1 Mod)),
Approved 2010ISA 95 Part 2 - Object Model Attributes
(ANSI/ISA-95.00.02-2010 (IEC 62264-2 Mod)), Approved 2010ISA 95
Part 3 - Activity Models of Manufacturing Operations Management
ISA 95 Part 4 - Object models and attributes for Manufacturing
Operations Management
Scholten, Bianca (2007) The Road to Integration - A Guide to
Applying the ISA-95 - Standard in Manufacturing, ISA International
Society of Automation.
ISO 11 064 Ergonomic Design of Control Centers Part 1 to 7
Predictive Analytics As If Analysis
Production Analytics
Asset Analytics
Process Analytics
Asset Management
Control Performance Optimization
Production Accounting & Inventory Control
Quality Management
Mine Fleet Management
Production Chain Planning
Mine/Processing Plant /Railroad/Port Operations
Most Mature
Most Used
Maining Typing error?
Please define C-level
The topic of this paragraph
is of primary relevance for management and governance. There are
different views on this subject; interesting point for
discussion
