FLEET MANAGEMENT SYSTEMS
and Safety , then Telemetry and Maintenance , and Grade Control , and finally Inventory Management .”
KMO-Fleet and data driven productivity
New FMS entrant KMO-Fleet with its mantra “ data driven productivity ” is a spin off from the UK ' s Camborne School of Mines – COO Dr Matt Eyre is still a Senior Lecturer at CSM while his colleague , the CEO Herman Aguirre-Jofre , a Chilean Mining Engineer , completed his PhD at CSM .
To date the company has been funded by Innovate UK to help it commercialise into industry . KMO is currently coming to the end of that funding with a view to transitioning into commercial sales of the system from May 2023 onwards . It has been built as a modular offering – designed to be both low cost and easily deployable without a lot of requirements for support by highly technical staff .
Aguirre-Jofre is a former Director of Operations Management at Codelco Andina . In his previous career in Chile he says more complex systems took time to install , were obviously costly and while effective in the main pit where not always keeping up with the new areas of the mine being developed .
He told IM : “ I had the feeling that FMS should be more plug and play . We have also interviewed 100s of smaller mines that have told us – they don ’ t need real time second by second data – the end of the shift is enough – and this brings the cost down hugely for them being able to use KMO ." Eyre adds : " And even with satcomms running off a solar panel , we can still achieve near real time – often we will position an uplink beacon at the crusher so the system is only ever half a cycle behind . Also installation is measured in hours , not days or weeks . Users don ’ t pay a big upfront cost – they pay per machine logger . So they avoid a big initial CAPEX .”
There are different ways KMO uses the sensor data – of course it runs digital signal processing algorithms and can also use AI where the machine will define the state it is in . As well as being OEM-agnostic , KMO gives users complete access to the data . Plus , they can configure dashboards to focus on whatever specific data they are most interested in . Or they can have the raw data if they need that .
KMO is now a year into its journey . Eyre : “ The whole ethos of KMO is to produce something which is low cost , simple to produce and provide a basis for a mine to facilitate and install without having sophisticated network infrastructure – saleable , low cost solutions for any size extractive operation . We went through Innovate UK ’ s ICURe program which focuses on spinning out expertise from universities into industry .”
The system has been designed to be intuitive , easily installed , and reconfigured if required when the mine expands . The system works independently of GPS connectivity , unlocking both surface and underground operations . KMO has also now certified its own hardware which will be hardwired in . “ If we have GPS we will use GPS but we have an amalgamation of other sensors that we use – 16 in all – that we use to make interpretations through AI and signal processing for example . We are also independent of wireless networks whch is obviously a big cost advantage ." Its target market is small to medium scale mines as a lighter system .
KMO uses an ad hoc WiFi system locally between the machines ( store and forward ). The logger is also OEM agnostic and can be fitted to any machine of any type and age – important for some smaller mines and quarries using mixed fleets of equipment that they may have had for 20 or even 30 years or more . When the truck approaches the shovel , data is passed between the equipment units . When the truck passes an uplink beacon , the shovel and trucks ’ data will be sent to the system for classification . This reduces the need for extensive Wifi network infrastructure . Additional beacons can act as a network connected bridge and be added in other areas to monitor interactions with infrastructure – these are battery powered and can be configured at the mine ’ s choice , for example at road intersections and underground at different access points .
Eyre states : “ A key thing we have developed is a ranging capability where we can give positions but also record data from the vehicles in close proximity . All our data loggers have the ability to range and are highly robust with an aluminium based and hard plastic housing . We are also in the process of integraring CANbus which will connect us to machine data via the J1939 protocol . But we want to mimimise connection time – our logger just has a two pin automotive connector .”
Another concept is the allocation GUI – a tablet application which KMO can supply – it scans the devices and communications with the device . In the management GUI you configure your site and your vehicles and allocate your devices to them ; this allows you to move devices around it you want to and reconfigure whenever you want . It runs on the cloud but can also run via a box on the minesite if needed ( if there is little or no internet ). The management portal tracks things like tonnages and production metrics as well as individual machine metrics and performance and which machines are meeting KPIs – we can also add financial metrics . The management GUI can also add in maintenance to the mix as well as utilisation and availability and
KMO-Fleet ' s data driven productivity FMS is now running at customer sites in Chile and Argentina
produce heatmaps of where machines have been operating .
At the back end , KMO can also incorporate dig blocks , which provides a basis to track material from the excavator , through the haulage fleet and into the plant bringing reconciliation insights . There is no full dispatch capability currently but this is in the works .
As with other FMS KMO says it is targeting areas like asset utilisation , fuel savings , blast performance analysis , improved productivity , blending management , contractor management and decarbonisation . KMO is already installed in a pilot at a remote mine in Chile through a contractor – so remote that it is connected via a satcomms uplink . It is using a fleet of 773F trucks mining high grade ore . A second small mining customer in Argentina will also be starting up with KMO soon and a pilot is running at a UK quarry . Plus the system has been tested in two underground mines .
But Aguirre-Jofre doesn ’ t see a limit either with small mines – with large operations , many ancilliary machines remain unconnected to the main FMS – like dozers and graders , plus infrastructure fleets operated by contractors . " We can also pull data off things like pumps and other fixed equipment that also isn ’ t normally factored into the main load and haul FMS .”
Going forward KMO is looking at adding about two new mines a quarter then potentially working with some resellers to help it scale . The potential is huge for these new FMS players like KMO – literally thousands of quarries and small mines , including industrial minerals mines , do not yet have a digital fleet monitoring system installed - but they want to able to get the same benefits as the big metallic operations .
FleetControl from Haultrax
FleetControl is a modern-day take on fleet management from Australia ’ s Haultrax . It ’ s a dispatch solution that it says provides time , material and activity tracking . It ’ s mobile , intuitive and easy to use . In addition to this , it also offer our solution FleetOps , which
66 International Mining | MAY 2023