| |JULY 202219with clients to design and deliver automated manufacturing and assembly machines leveraging advanced technologies. Therefore, organizations with advanced machine control can optimize operations, improve connectivity across the enterprise and obtain profitable growth. Material Handling Equipment in MiningMaterial handling equipment is one of the critical parts of the mining supply chain as it is highly essential for the movement, storage, and delivery of materials across the mine and acts as a link between the mine to the market. Mining companies come across multiple challenges when it comes to material handling in mining. Material handling in mining is not easy, especially when you are working with large machines that carry large quantities of materials from one end to the other and this means that a problem upstream will cascade across the site and down the supply chain. Also, none of the mining companies are immune to the aforementioned challenges but for many taking variably out of the scenario is key. In addition, material transfer is usually a complex task and without a fully automated system in place, operators are overburdened as they try to perform numerous tasks and manage multiple interfaces. And, with this continuous handoff happening at almost all phase of the chain, many companies are defenseless to unscheduled process delays, lack of standardization owing to operator variability and miscommunication.The focal point for plant operations is the load controller and this means that during the busiest parts of their day, they would require to resolve multiple challenges simultaneously and the TLO operator can quickly become overburdened by all the sources of information that they need to consult and this is exactly where mistakes and delays start to pile-up.A Case in PointLet us now look at how a major mining company overcame the challenges that existed for the TLO operation through a solution offered by one of the largest material handling equipment manufacturing company. The solution offered by the largest Industrial automation company was a Decision automation/execution management for material handling that was based on a comprehensive MES, which can facilitate in meeting productivity, quality, compliance, and cost-saving goals and a multi-disciplined control solution built mainly focusing on controllers and I/O and combined with attachment portfolios, that helped in delivering smart, productive and secure integrated architecture system. Once the solution was implemented, it coordinated the resources in the customer's mine, while the Execution Management (EM) automated the orchestration of the equipment decision-making process. The Execution Management performed this task by integrating with SAP and the site's job management system to automatically convert a job into a list of all the tasks and equipment needed to correctly execute the job.By integrating with existing control systems, EM aligns the pieces of equipment needed to complete the task and after this, the existing control system enables permission for the route and equipment. In the next phase, EM will constantly keep updating both the stockpile inventory management system and the SAP system on the job progress. And, EM will automatically relocate the equipment to the correct position for the next job, once the current job has been completed. The solution offered by the company comprised two main components which were the production manager and Real-time execution management (REM). While the Production Manager defined the job number, job quantity, and type of material, the REM directed the production manager coordinating the start or completion of a job, measuring material consumption and material productions. Also, the role of REM is to command and orchestrate the automation system from each area, ensuring that all the operations will complete the job.Optimizing asset ROIThe implementation of this solution was easy since EM integrates with the existing control system, which has helped in keeping all the existing control and safety systems remain in place. After installation, the benefits and merits of the implementations exceeded the company's expectations and improvements to conformance scheduling were seen immediately based on a standardization of the most efficient operational processes for the site. Not just that, the customer also observed a reduction in the workload and dependency on the operators and reduced unscheduled process delays and the solution resulted in an annual saving of $200 million for the company.Future of Indian Automated Material Handling Equipment marketThe Indian material handling sector has observed significant growth in recent years. The factors responsible for the growth of this include the increase in investment in infrastructure development, a surge in demand for higher automation, and the enablement of safe working practices in the manufacturing area. While industrialization is one of the major reasons for the Indian material handling equipment industry to have a promising future, there are various other reasons for the country to become a vital market for Material Handling Equipment. These include the increase in number of warehouses and container freight stations, which has resulted in the surge in demand for material handling equipment. CHARTING THE PATH TO AUTOMATION IN MATERIAL HANDLING
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