Abstract
Mining companies have evolved significantly with regards to maintenance practices. Moving away from reactive maintenance has been achieved by implementing preventive maintenance strategies. Some have moved a step further by leveraging operational data (pressure, speed, temperature) to implement condition-based maintenance or even predictive maintenance. But are we still facing failures? Do we still have risks related to other assets? And what about those assets that do not generate operational data? Both process assets and static assets such as a tailings facility, a tank or a building need to be managed properly. And transportation infrastructure your mine is dependent upon, including port facility also requires to be properly managed. Most companies are mainly focusing on operational equipment, while other types of assets can also represent significant risks in terms of safety, leaks, emissions or other impacts leading to costly downtime. And what about data that is not operational? A picture for example can provide significant value if properly analyzed. Even the operators feedback can generate significant insights to help determine the asset health.
Asset integrity, reliability & durability requires all types of data to be analyzed properly. Engineers have developed a strong expertise in analysing this data and calculating the integrity of the asset to ensure its safe usage and proper maintenance. How much time do we have until we need to repair or replace a chemical process tank for example, is of key importance! And making sure we perform optimal maintenance activities also helps in improving an asset’s health and durability.
By combining this advanced expertise that engineers in asset integrity, reliability and durability have developed over the years with advanced analytics, it is now possible to improve maintenance planning significantly! And if we add deep learning and artificial intelligence, is it now possible for a system to learn and provide recommendations! Many questions can now be answered easily such as how much time do I have left before the asset fails? When should I replace this asset? Is it still safe to operate this asset? What are my capex plans for the next 5 years?
In this presentation you will learn how to step into a new era of maintenance called Risk Based Maintenance. Combining digital transformation technology with engineering expertise allows us to manage the entire life cycle of all types of assets used in mining operations. This allows, among other things, to maximize the use of existing assets, minimize their total cost of ownership, reduce related carbon emissions, reduce risks to our operations and of course, improve operations efficiency.