FLEET MANAGEMENT
Critical to customer success is all assets from a
variety of vendors, talking to each other. We
promote data engines to take full advantage of
interoperability, from planning, to operations, to
market. Mines should not let anyone sell them
on a complete, expensive system with decades of
implementation. Hexagon believes in a fully
scalable IoT platform that begins with making a
mine’s existing investment smarter, scaling only
as fast as its budget allows and driven by proving
each phase pays for itself before embarking on
the next milestone in an IoT roadmap that the
mine defines.”
VIST and the true digital mine
VIST Group FMS customers include Severstal,
Evraz, SUEK, EuroChem, Metinvest, OCP, NLMK,
Polymetal, Polyus and ArcelorMittal. But for the
past five years a major focus has been investing
in the future technologies in mining, such as
autonomous dump trucks, autonomous drilling
rigs and predictive analytics for different
applications in mining.
Dmitry Klebanov, VIST Group Business
Development Director believes the worlds of
dispatch, autonomy and process analytics are
rapidly converging. “The main difference of our
modern approach of providing solutions to the
mining industry is that we provide a true digital
mine, not only a module with health monitoring
or optimisation of the fleet. Some vendors are
well known for offerings that highlight health
monitoring and dispatch, others focus on
industrial safety and still others predictive
analytics and robotics…but there are gaps
between all these functions, since vendors do
not generally provide change management and
are not process consultants. In the near future,
consulting companies, such as McKinsey,
Accenture and BCG will start implementing
technologies, and will be able to compete with
the usual vendors of IT technologies in mining,
because they have the competence in
organisational changes that are necessary for a
modern digital mine.”
The VIST Intelligent Mine offers unmanned
mining operations with autonomous dump
trucks and intelligent teleoperation with
augmented reality for loaders, shovels dozers,
graders and other on-site machines. For haul
trucks and excavators it cites increase
utilisation of up to 20-25%, and reduced
maintenance cost of 10-15%, together with
reduced payroll and reduced consumables. For
drilling rigs VIST says it can increase utilisation
up to 35%, as well as maintenance works by 10-
15% per year.
The original VIST VG KARIER FMS has many
specific modules that can help mines get the
most out of their operations.
As an example it has an optimisation module
46 International Mining | MAY 2018
that estimates the required number of dump
trucks required based on the actual performance
of shovels, actual travelling speed of dump
trucks and other factors derived from the
statistics of the current and preceding shifts.
Therefore, a dispatch control operator is
prevented from sending “extra” dump trucks to
the work area, whose operation cannot
meaningfully increase the output of shovels.
This module also enables the dump trucks’
open-cycle operation with automatic control. The
driver gets from the system a notification
showing to which shovel his dump truck should
travel after discharge, or after a significant
change of the situation in mining operations
(failures, etc)
The optimisation module ensures the
enhancement of performance by accurately
estimating the required number of vehicles and
directing those vehicles to the proper positions
at the proper times. This functionality enables
management and control actions that result in
significant performance enhancement as
compared to a manual system without intelligent
computer-based algor ithmic optimisation.
With the creation of optimisation groups, the
dispatcher divides the available shovel fleet into
groups, each working in an open cycle. A group
may consist of a single shovel. In this case, the
dump trucks assigned to it are not redistributed
by the system in the process of operation. The
dispatcher may manually relocate a dump truck
between groups and within a group. In this case,
the system sends the same notification to a
driver as it does in case of automatic distribution.
The driver is actually unaware of the fact of who
or what is guiding his operation: software, a
traffic control operator or a foreman using a
workpad with software. However, every
instruction is recorded in the data base and can
be analysed at any time.
The VG KARIER system also provides “end-to-
end” fuel logging including logging of fuel in gas
Summary of the platforms and functionalities
that make up VIST Group’s digital mine
stations, loading of fuel trucks, fuel feed form
fuel trucks to vehicles, and control of fuel
consumption by vehicles. Every stage of this
process is subject to double and triple checks.
For instance, in loading of fuel trucks the
possibility of a discrepancy is checked in three
measurements: change of the fuel level of an
immobile storage tank, change of fuel level in a
fuel truck vessel and fuel volume passed
through fuel-handling facilities. This type of
check is also applicable for transport vehicle
refuelling.
The maintenance module lets miners keep a
reliable history on technical maintenance in
terms of its durability, periodicity, quality, etc as
well as a history and control of substituted units
and devices of dump trucks, which allows mines
to judge the cost of maintenance and also by
implication the different results from
components from different manufacturers. As
with other systems it creates a complete and
reliable picture of technical maintenance and
repairs: where, at what time and for how long the
work was taking place as well as effecting the
timely planning of technical maintenance and
repairs and make conclusions about the mode of
operation of a vehicle.
There is the option of adding scheduled
technical maintenance and repairs and
comparing their standards and worklists and the
capability of keeping a history both for repairs
and technical maintenance of a truck and all of
its units and devices installed on the truck
independently as well as keeping archives on
installation\dismantling of units and components
of a truck for which the spare capacity rate is
generated. There is automatic personnel
notification of the necessity of technical
maintenance and automatic personnel
notification about faults during operation. IM