Engineering and Mining Journal - Whether the market is copper, gold, nickel, iron ore, lead/zinc, PGM, diamonds or other commodities, E&MJ takes the lead in projecting trends, following development and reporting on the most efficient operating pr
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PLANT DESIGN The Central Control Room: Improving Mine Operational Performance Emerging technologies enable producers to apply new software systems in an integrated approach that provides usable mine- and plant-related information—not just data By Fabio Mielli Over the past decade, mining and mineral processing companies have utilized several different software and systems in a targeted manner to improve various aspects of individual processes and mine performance. This approach tended to focus on isolated aspects of plant performance such as process control, plant supervision, mining planning, process historians, quality control, etc. While these approaches have yielded acceptable return on investment, a greater opportunity exists for mining operations to leverage new software technologies and for the potential integration to enhance operational excellence across the entire operation, even including remote mines. This article outlines new approaches and innovative technologies for business, sustainability, energy management, video surveillance, monitoring, plant management software, and the additional benefits of information exchange among all of these applications to deliver an integrated view of the mining business. In remote locations, the information and situation awareness is typically limited to the location itself. In addition, access to that information is limited to a small, select group of personnel who have received training on how to interpret the results. When the situation affects another area of the mine, the information is then relayed to the applicable areas involved. Few workers have time to analyze the situation thoroughly in order to see how it affects the mine's symbiotic relationship within all areas of production. If the capability to correlate and measure events and situations that affect overall performance is not in place, the opportunity to identify process improvement becomes more difficult. The Central Control Room One misunderstanding about central control rooms is the idea of having several applications from remote mines being monitored from a distance at a single location with several monitors. This idea is only part of the concept. The most challenging approach of the central control room is the analytics behind the information, including data aggregation and mixing different disciplines to bring new insights. The core of the central control room is the integration of Information Technology and Operations Technology, which brings more and more information from real-time systems (from the mines) into IT software. These are among the key opportunities to enhance efficiency, responsiveness and profitability across the mining value chain. The Right Information to the Right People Platform of integrated software applications and suites that maximize business performance while conserving enterprise resources. 30 E&MJ; • JULY 2013 The central command has to deliver relevant information to the right people while avoiding overload of information and the deliverance of the wrong key performance indicators to the wrong people. www.e-mj.com