Implementation of a machine health monitoring and service management system at several mines of a major operator in Europe allowed saving over $350,000 by reducing unplanned downtime’s and providing more precise service and spare parts logistics planning.
TALPA Solutions is an analytics software company, founded in 2016 in Essen, Germany. We provide predictive analytics applications for fixed and mobile assets, covering machinery and equipment in various industries including mining, oil, gas, energy, logistics and construction
TALPA offers an industrial intelligence platform, which uses real-time and historical data from machinery and equipment, as well as contextual information about the weather and the environment to optimize operations for equipment operators and managers. The “end-to-end” data capture and analytics solution help to prevent unscheduled downtime, extend the lifespan of machinery, and improve equipment utilization grade throughout the whole product lifecycle.
TALPA’s unique business model revolves around strategic partnerships with mining companies and OEMs, to access large data sources, industry expertise and deployed assets. We leverage our partners’ expertise to identify industry challenges and develop relevant applications that address specific pain points and enable new data-driven business models and revenue sources as well as operational performance improvement.
Overview
Underground mining operations involve a lot of mobile machines, such as LHD´s, dump trucks, drill-rigs and auxiliary equipment. They often become a closed silo of information. Once underground, the machine is hardly visible to the OEM that has delivered it, as well as to the central services of the mining company responsible for planning its maintenance and supplying relevant spare parts. TALPA in partnership with the end-user – a major mining company and leading OEM has recently implemented the system allowing reduction of the equipment service costs by more than 35% per year.
Stagewise implementation of the system has foreseen the optimization of the service scheduling system based on the engine hours of the machines sent in a near-real time automatic mode to the system. It was later complemented by displaying the full set of the error codes and generated signals. In the third stage, the virtual advisory was provided to the service personnel to understand the issues registered at each unit and plan fit-for-purpose actions in the right time was. Interface to the central procurement system and providing equal information to the OEM allows timely supply of truly required spare-parts. This brings major stock optimization opportunities and timely delivery of the components.
Challenge
In the face of increasing economic and environmental pressure on fleet operators, limited communication with operators can create inefficiencies in scheduling and managing the workflow, leading to extra trips, more time spent on administrative tasks and less time spent on revenue-driving activities.
As a consequence, the mining industry needed to reduce the variability and the unknowns of the production and equipment maintenance process to keep up fleet availability. This is why a major mining company in cooperation with their OEM decided to adopt a proactive approach to addressing these
complexities.
The mining company and OEM have realized that the information about the technical conditions of the machines was only available periodically based on the regular inspections by the service personnel and feedback from production. It made it very challenging, though, to plan service activities for the service personnel of the mine as well as spare-parts supply and technical support by the OEM. a Real-time picture of the technical conditions of the machines in combination with the system tracking relevant maintenance operations was required to optimize these processes.
Solution
The solution was developed by TALPA in cooperation with the end-user and OEM. It solves industry-specific problems and delivers fast time to value. Using TALPA’s smart maintenance suite has improved key processes throughout its workflow, delivering a clear understanding of the technical state of the fleet based on OEM standards as well as real technical conditions and allowing optimization of
after-sales services for OEM´s and technical operations of the end-user.
TALPA’s maintenance scheduling system empowers the mine operator to track and manage all his machines from partner OEM in one system, allowing employees who were previously tied up with time consuming tasks of fault finding and service scheduling to concentrate on essential process of
upkeeping fleet availability for production. The customer leveraged TALPA’s industrial intelligence platform to reduce costs and boost its productivity:
- Improved service scheduling by understanding the exact time to service for a fleet of over 150 machines, based on permanently available knowledge of engine hours left till the next service, recent workload of indiiviual machines and registered errors.
- Timely reactions to critical warnings and trends in the intervals between scheduled services prevents damages to the machines, which would require major overhauls.
- Precise preparations for the service events, knowing exact details of the minor and uncritical errors registered on the machines.
- Optimizes spare-part supply by providing timely information to procurement services of the end-client as well OEM to get necessary shipments.
- Provide feedback to OEM on recurring issues in order to optimize the design of supplied equipment.
- Reduce administrative burden by integrating all pertinent data into one application.
- Boosting productivity by intervening as and when required, allowing more time for machines to stay in the production process.
