HIGH PROFILE
Mine intelligence with independence
Finnish-Russian technology company Zyfra remains OEMindependent and innovative – and is keeping pace with industry change through continuous improvement & reinvention
With the pace of an ever-changing 21stcentury world , industry needs to keep up with demand by anticipating developments to stay relevant and competitive . When it comes to mining , oil & gas , chemicals and heavy engineering , the Zyfra Group , with main locations in both Russia and Finland , believes it is doing precisely that . The Zyfra Mining division focuses on digital mining solutions with more than 30 years of experience and its products are now actively being used in over 80 mines around the world - with more than 6,000 items of mining equipment and vehicles connected and counting – the company says it understands that “ keeping up with change means innovating change .”
Zyfra RoboDrill – streamlining the process
Zyfra ’ s award-winning robotic and tele-operated mining equipment it says offers increased mine productivity , safety , and equipment utilisation while reducing OPEX . It includes Zyfra RoboDrill , an autonomous drilling solution which covers everything from high-precision drills to full autoguidance , auto-movement , auto-levelling and drilling . The deployment benefits include increased drill rig productivity through reduced idle time , faster drilling and guidance operations , reduced shift change , increased shovel , excavator and mill productivity , reduced human impact on drilling results , reduced re-drilling volumes , plus increased drill rig availability and utilisation . Zyfra told IM the solution is all about streamlining the drilling process for more efficient and consistent results .
The system is available in three variants , the ZR Drill Guidance for improved high precision drilling , the ZR TeleDrill for tele-operation and autonomous drilling , and the top-of-the-line variant , the ZR RoboDrill , which turns a drilling rig into an autonomous drilling robot . RoboDrill can be retrofitted onto both diesel and electric drills and is OEM agnostic .
An application example for Zyfra RoboDrill is its implementation at SUEK ’ s Tugnuy strip coal mine , where it has demonstrated a drill rig productivity increase by 20 %, reduced the probability of accidents significantly and reduced drilling and blasting expenditures . In Latin America , one of the important open pit copper mines in Peru is also in the process of implementing Zyfra autonomous drilling solutions .
Zyfra RoboTruck – a complete haulage solution
Another product of Zyfra is the RoboTruck autonomous haulage solution , which is also available in three options . First off Tele-Operated Haulage for improved personnel safety and improved 24 / 7 performance , then Fully Autonomous Haulage for overall greater haul truck efficiency in cost , time , and performance and finally Fully Autonomous Haulage incorporated into Intelligent Mine : Fully Robotic Fleet Management which includes autonomous drilling , hauling and tele-operated loaders and dozers with complete control over extractive operations .
Zyfra says the results have already spoken for themselves with the application of Zyfra RoboTruck delivered at SUEK ’ s coal mining operations in the Republic of Khakassia . At this mining site , productivity has increased by up to 22 %, average truck speeds increased by 7 % at night , and overall there was a 13 % reduction in fuel expenditure , with additional improvements in personnel safety and operational cost-effectiveness .
Universal platforms
Both RoboDrill and RoboTruck can also be integrated with the award-winning Zyfra OpenMine solution , for efficient mining and transport management . Open Mine can manage everything from excavation , drilling , and blasting , to transport and advanced analytics . It has been shown to increase excavator , haul truck and drilling rig productivity by as much as 15 %, reduce equipment operating costs by up to 10 %, plus deliver a 5-10 % reduction in fuel expenditure and a 3 % reduction in maintenance expenditures .
The OpenMine system has been implemented at many sites worldwide . In particular , it has been installed at the Pakri Barwadih Coal Mining Project in Jharkhand ( India ), as a part of the complex Intelligent Mine solution which , in addition to mining transport management , includes the automated drilling and blasting control system , machine guidance digging systems , payload and fuel level monitoring system , tyre management and equipment diagnostic solutions .
Lastly , the Zyfra Industrial Internet of Things Platform or ZIIoT is an new element Zyfra has added to its arsenal of industrial solutions . ZIIoT is a universal platform designed to support digital transformation for industrial companies . It is universal because it addresses the needs of all key stakeholders - business , IT , digital , data science teams and end-users , in a single connected system .
“ ZIIoT includes a set of pre-configured solutions , an embedded development environment , and the ability for all applications to be hosted in a common platform ecosystem , which allows apps to operate with collected production data without the need to implement additional collection and storage modules . The platform can implement individual components for solving specific local tasks by a mine ’ s own IT team , which allows for harmonious and effective production automation of business management processes .”
With these innovative products Zyfra Group is pushing the envelope in developing and implementing solutions based on industrial IoT and AI . Offering global support and with local competence centres in Latin America , Africa , India , and Russia , Zyfra can also better ensure that its solutions are accessible as well as relevant to more businesses .
Pavel Rastopshin , Managing Director at Zyfra states : “ This is one of the benefits of cooperating with Zyfra : we are interested in the development of local companies ’ competence . We spend lots of resources on improving competence among our partners and have conducted various training courses .” In 2020 Zyfra opened a new office in Pretoria and is actively currently looking for more partners in South Africa but also Namibia , Botswana , Lesotho and Ghana . IM
12 International Mining | AUGUST 2021