Pub. 6 2016 Issue 2

14 AT THE CENTER OF UTAH INDUSTRY EQUIPMENT IMPROVEMENT continued from page 13 Remote connectivity, embedded sensors, the ability to monitor performance, data storage onboard, and diagnostics are all part of the systems that have been developed. The idea is to prioritize maintenance, increase equipment use, and reduce downtime for critical equipment. apply automotive technology to mining operations. What’s the benefit? • Mining operations can continue all the time, even during the night or while shifts are changing. • Since the machines don’t need to be run by operators, human errors go away. • Safety improves because it isn’t necessary any more to drive trucks in terrain or conditions that are dangerous. • Performance improves because it can be controlled and because it is more consistent. What can be controlled? Mining companies can decide a truck’s speed, its route, and the places it stops. Why is that a benefit? It makes it easier for them to determine how long the truck will last. • According to a mining engineering professor at the University of British Columbia named John Meech, hauling systems that are autonomous could improve output by 15 to 20 percent. Fuel consumption could go down 10 to 15 percent, and trucks could improve their operational time by 10 to 20 percent. One company to keep an eye out for its automated products and services is Joy Global. It was founded in 1884 but has been focused since the late 1990s on building smart, connected products that are intended to optimize mine per formance. Its first smar t machine, released in 1998, was a continuous miner that is self-propelled and can be controlled at a distance from a safe location. Remote connectivity, embedded sensors, the ability to monitor performance, data storage onboard, and diagnostics are all part of the systems that have been developed. The idea is to prioritize maintenance, increase equipment use, and reduce downtime for critical equipment. Products have four capabilities: the ability to monitor operations and performance, remote control of operating parameters, ma i n t enanc e op t imi za t i on , and autonomous operation. What’s the risk of autonomous systems? Mining companies that use them need complementary systems to monitor the equipment and spot any equipment problems or performance issues. That way, the automated equipment will perform more consistently. Also, it’s a good idea to look at long-term lifecycle costs, and avoid a culture of complacency once the automation is implemented. Automating for the sake of automating is not a guaranteed win. You have to know what the drawbacks are going in ahead of time, and you can’t expect electronics to do the entire job. Improved Energy Efficiency Thirty percent of the energy used in industrial buildings gets wasted. The Department of Energy would like to see that change and has challenged companies to improve energy efficiency in their buildings by 20 percent or more before 2020. Not only does that save money, but it also reduces U.S. dependence on foreign oil and protects the environment. How do mining companies go about improving the energy efficiency of their buildings? There are two ways to approach the problem: • Improve t he per formance of equipment. • Change how equipment is used. Equipment monitoring makes it possible to determine when a facility has peak energy demands and schedule work to minimize those peaks. It is also helpful to review the energy used on weekends to see whether any opportunities for energy reduction are there, and examine any start-up spikes. In those cases, it might be possible to improve energy efficiency just by staggering when different machines start and in that way to prevent voltage jumps. Another way plant managers can improve efficiency is by virtualizing their IT infrastructure. Doing so helps companies use existing processing power, consolidate servers, and recover from disasters more quickly. Modern servers are reliable and inexpensive and can eliminate the need to support the network with multiple boxes. X