Mining for data: reaching a new level in digital capabilities
11 October 2017
Metso, an industrial company serving the mining, aggregates, recycling, oil, gas, pulp, paper and process industries, selected Rockwell Automation to deliver a global IIoT platform that connects, monitors and performs analytics on its equipment and services.
Metso set up a Digital Programme in 2016 to accelerate the company to a new level in digital capabilities, which is critical to succeeding in the future of minerals processing and flow control.
With multiple sites around the world, many in inhospitable places, Metso wanted to be able to collect and store data from its equipment, both new and existing, in real-time. In order to do this, Metso partnered with Rockwell Automation and built its digital solution on the FactoryTalk Cloud platform. Powered by Microsoft Azure, the Cloud platform is offered as a secure service without the need for additional infrastructure; data can be taken from a control system and sent straight up to the Azure Cloud to be analysed. Metso already had data scientists and digital solutions architects in place to analyse the data, giving them the ability to immediately begin monitoring assets in real-time.
Rockwell Automation began working with Metso in 2015 on a pilot project. Connectivity spoke to Mike Loughran, Rockwell Automation’s Chief Technology Officer in the UK, who explained the project involved remotely monitoring an African-based mining crusher from a location in Wisconsin. Metso was immediately able to use the data collected to identify opportunities for improvements in machine design and performance.
One of the key capabilities this project provided was the use of predictive maintenance. With real-time access to data, failures in machines could be prevented before downtime occurred.
No longer was it necessary for an engineer to visit a site or for a machine to fail before an issue was flagged up. For example, take a bearing that it isn’t working properly. This can be flagged up and rectified prior to failure, saving the time spent waiting for a new part (which could be a number of days) and ultimately reducing the cost of downtime. If you know a particular asset is going to fail, you can plan in the order of a spare part and plan when you’re going to take the asset offline, meaning you’re in control of the uptime.
The cost of implementing an off-the-shelf solution such as this greatly outweighs the cost of the potential downtime. For the mining industry as a whole, access to data enables higher uptime, faster and safer shutdowns, and ultimately more tonnage processed at a higher cost. The success of this programme and the ‘quick win’ it provided gave Metso the confidence that a broader implementation of the IIoT platform would drive the results it was seeking on a global scale.
Mike Loughran emphasises that pilot projects and ‘quick wins’ are the way forward for any company looking to start its digital journey. Companies can work on one asset and look at improving its uptime, performance and maintenance, using its success to then roll the solution out across the rest of the company.
By using Rockwell Automation’s Cloud platform, coupled with global coverage from Microsoft Azure’s data centres, companies like Metso can now deliver analysed equipment data to its customers for advanced decision making.
Contact Details and Archive...