FLEET MANAGEMENT
global presence across four strategic locations : North America , South America , EMEA , and a key focus in Australia . “ As of today , Fast2 Mine has established a partnership agreement with Mining Plus to expand its operations globally with 150 + mining professionals strategically located throughout these target regions . With this partnership , FAST2 Mine and Mining Plus are expecting to bring a robust innovation for the international mining industry , besides to have a fast and sustainable growth .”
GroundHog FMS gains traction
GroundHog with bases in the US , India and Australia is one of the fastest-growing fleet management systems in the mining industry . It attributes its growth as being primarily fueled by ease-of-deployment , ease-of-use , plus ease-ofadministration and support . CEO Satish Penmetsa told IM : “ Surging commodity prices combined with significant labour shortages and long equipment order backlogs post-COVID have been forcing mines to accelerate their digitisation and automation roadmaps to meet market demand . The system is being used by gold , potash and limestone mines in the US and Canada , and is being piloted by many other battery minerals , copper and coal sites . Most sites go live in a couple of weeks . What makes GroundHog attractive is its use of standard , offthe-shelf iPads and pre-ruggedised Android tablets , and the use of AI and Data Analytics to automate Dispatch , QA / QC and Blend Management .”
At its core , GroundHog ’ s revolutionary architecture allows customers to download the GroundHog FMS app on standard iPads and Android Tablets , configure geo-fences and start automatically counting trips almost immediately . Supervisors download the Supervisor App to monitor production in real-time and are able to change mining priorities in real-time . Mine managers use the Mine Manager ’ s app to monitor KPIs for production and safety , again in real-time .
“ Data should be the cornerstone of all decisions you make at a mine site - from improving productivity , and equipment utilisation to safety processes ,” says Penmetsa . “ The great Peter Drucker once said ‘ you cant improve what you don ’ t measure .’ So , data is the foundation of everything we do at GroundHog , and data is central to what we encourage our customers to do to improve productivity and safety . We also recognise that supervisors easily get lost in all the data - so we apply machine learning and AI to synthesise this data and translate it into actionable insights that front-line supervisors then use to mine more tons , faster and safer .”
GroundHog says its OEM agnostic FMS has helped its customers increase haulage efficiency by automating dispatch to reduce hang-times and queue times and also meet the feed rate and feed grade requirements . Pre-existing integrations into on-board telemetry systems , load cells , fuel sensors and TPMS sensors allow ops and maintenance teams to actively monitor equipment performance and asset health . Telemetry units also provide accurate availability and utilisation metrics and are easily configured to generate reports according to the mine ’ s Time Utilization Model .
Pre-built Integrations with High-Precision GPS units from Trimble , Topcon and other leading centimetre-level RTK GNSS receivers enables mines to selectively mine so as to minimise ore dilution , and also minimise ore losses to waste dumps . “ GroundHog helps drills to improve dig location accuracy and reduce rework . Shovels and excavators can easily comply with design surfaces to meet blend requirements and maintain proper bench floors . Dozers and blades also meet surface grade requirements .”
“ We have been fortunate to learn from Fleet Management Systems such as Modular , MineStar , and Wenco . These are really robust systems that run on custom hardware and require highly trained administrators and dispatch operators ,” says Krishna Kunam , Groundhog CTO . “ We ’ ve been able to leverage advances in technology ushered in by the Industry 4.0 – powerful smart phones and tablets , LiDAR , computer vision and AI to build extremely user-friendly systems that require virtually no user input or radio communication to run an efficient mine .”
Over the past few years , all the mining OEMs have started standardising on common communication protocols such as the CAN-BUS ( SAE J1939 ), to make their diagnostics-friendly and automation-friendly . Kunam states : “ Now systems like GroundHog are able to read realtime telemetry and asset health data from a Caterpillar , Komatsu , Liebherr , Hitachi , Volvo , Doosan , Sany , Furukawa , Sandvik or Epiroc machines along with many other equipment manufacturers just as easily as you can read engine fault codes from your car ’ s OBD II port . Mines no longer need to be at the mercy of the OEMs to provide monthly reports as they do today .”
GroundHog says it also integrates with a very wide range of software used for mine planning and scheduling systems such as Deswik , Vulcan and Geovia . GroundHog can seamlessly import volumetric data from load scanners and drones , and tonnage information from weigh-bridges . GroundHog ’ s APIs allow mines to import GroundHog data into their Data Lakes and easily create their own reports using PowerBI and Tableau . GroundHog has a pre-built reporting app on the Microsoft PowerBI app store that mines can run out-of-the-box which includes reports on equipment availability and utilisation , operator performance , material rehandling , fuel consumption analytics , and plans-to-actuals variance analytics . BI teams can also customise these pre-built reports to meet their own reporting requirements .
Today , GroundHog ’ s customer base is primarily in the US , Canada and Australia but it says it is expanding significantly in India , Indonesia , South America , and Africa .
TORSA & fleet control
Malaga , Spain-headquartered TORSA offers an innovative fleet control system allows real-time vehicle monitoring , which makes it possible to monitor the updated positioning of each element of the fleet as well as the most important data for each vehicle at all times . “ Through the TORSA
GroundHog ’ s revolutionary architecture allows customers to download the GroundHog FMS app on standard iPads and Android Tablets
46 International Mining | MAY 2022