FLEET REPORTING
connects the mine’s various systems, so we’ve
developed technologies to make interfacing
easy and fast. For example, the Wenco system
can share its onboard GPS to other onboard
systems, reducing clutter and the amount of
maintenance time required to keep all of the
onboard systems running optimally. The ability
to seamlessly integrate data from other systems
has the added benefit of increasing the
equipment operators’ situational awareness.
The mine can reduce the number of screens on a
shovel or truck, but remain confident that
important information from other systems will
be brought to the operator’s attention when and
if needed. And of course, all of this information
then gets logged to a central and open
database, making data analysis much easier."
Where possible, multiple onboard systems
can be relocated onto a single onboard
computer. Wenco’s premium computer is
capable of running multiple systems
simultaneously, reducing the footprint of
systems in the cab, and again reducing
maintenance time. “Convergence is happening,
and fleet management systems are the hub that
everything is converging on”, states Clarke.
Clarke also noted that FMS have advanced in
a variety of ways over the past five years. "Five
years ago there was a sweet spot for FMS in
terms of equipment counts. Too few units and it
was difficult to be economically viable, and too
many would stress the wireless network
infrastructure of the day. We are no longer
constrained by those limitations. Wenco’s fleet
management system can scale from four trucks
to 200 or more. This is making fleet
management a practical consideration for small
mines and quarries.”
Clarke also stated that Wenco becoming part
of the Hitachi Group has had a range of positive
affects on their offering. “The majority of mining
operations have mixed fleets of some kind, and
Wenco has always been proud of being OEM
impartial. We ran as a successful independent
company for over 20 years with a focus on
interfacing to any and all OEMs. Hitachi’s
involvement with Wenco has done nothing but
improve on our ability to do that. Wenco has
more than doubled in size in the five years since
Hitachi Construction Machinery ac quired us, and
our product line and list of interfaces has grown
similarly. Our ability to work with any
combination of equipment manufacturers with
no reduction in functionality is key to a
successful fleet management system
implementation, and of course our involvement
with HCM gives us access to leverage the
expertise of a major OEM. The breadth of
industries that Hitachi is involved with is
incredible; mining and construction, of course,
but also automotive systems, consulting, liquid
00 International Mining | JANUARY 2015
natural gas tanks, power systems, and of course
high-tech areas like smart data and cloud
systems. The list keeps growing, and so does
the potential for Wenco to bring benefits from
these other industries into mining operations.”
Hexagon Mining is an established fleet
management player, in part due to the success
of Leica Jigsaw. Leica Jigsaw offers solutions for
fleet management and production optimisation,
high-precision machine guidance, machine
maintenance, business intelligence and
analytics. In March, Hexagon Mining released
Leica Jasset, the monitoring solution that
locates mobile and semi mobile assets for the
mining industry. Supervisor vehicles, lighting
plants, water pumps, communications trailers,
generators, portable toilets and many other
assets are difficult to track due to the mobile
nature of their use.
“Quite often between shift changes assets
can get misplaced. This can happen for a variety
of reasons and historically a mine wouldn’t track
these assets. However, getting a full picture of
all the working parts and resources within a
mine is crucial to increase productivity,” said Joe
Arico, Product Manager, Leica Geosystems
Mining, Brisbane, Australia. Leica Geosystems
Mining has created a product which will
immediately benefit existing customers through
seamless integration with the Leica fleet
management solution. It is able to use a mine’s
existing Wi-Fi infrastructure or cellular network
for communication and storage of the data can
be done in the Jmineops database.
The Leica Jigsaw fleet management software
platform is also being updated in a major way.
The auto zero hole feature has seen updates to
improve accuracy and save time, allowing the
drill operator to bypass the J2drill user interface
when commencing drilling. The drill monitor
detects when the bit is lowered to the ground
and zeros the hole automatically. This saves
time drilling each hole and means better data is
recorded for each drilled hole. Leica
Jsurfaceminer will provide surface miner
The Boddington mine team with the Jps
Combined Receiver
operators with a design plan so they can see
where the surface miner is and where they are
heading. Mine safety improvements can also be
made by providing operators with indicators of
road conditions and speed limits. Also,
Jsupervisor can be configured to allow the
supervisor to see over-speed messages from
trucks, delivering real-time updates of
dangerous driving.
Matthew Desmond, Chief Innovation Officer at
Hexagon Mining discussed some of the
developments in fleet management at Hexagon
with IM. “There are quite a few technology
trends that have been seen in other industries
that are now entering and helping evolve fleet
management systems. For example GPS, which
has been around for over 15 years, is now more
sophisticated and reliable and is now part of the
infrastructure in many operations. One of the
challenges or limits for the use of GPS has
traditionally been in deeper pits. Leica
Geosystems’ new Jps Combined Receiver
(GPS+GLONASS+Galileo+Locata) gives Locata
signals the same status as the satellite
signals.”
Leica worked in close collaboration with
Locata’s engineering team in Canberra,
integrating Locata’s signals deep in their Kalman
Filter, offering the first GPS+Locata receiver. This
GPS+Locata receiver is the first device to show
the power of GPS 2.0 – Locata’s vision of the
future of positioning where satellite and
terrestrial signals are seamlessly combined to
produce a better, more robust positioning
solution.
Leica is now shipping this new combined
receiver to its international mining customers,
following extensive field testing at Newmont’s
Boddington gold mine in Western Australia. The
trials at Boddington proved conclusively that
Locata’s high accuracy positioning technology
embedded in Leica' Jps system provided an