Pragma recently secured the Table Mountain Aerial Cableway as a new On Key EAMS client.

“We are immensely honoured to partner with the Table Mountain Aerial Cableway’s technical team. We aim to help them ensure that the Cableway operation remains in tiptop condition to safely glide up and down the iconic Table Mountain, providing tourists with a memorable experience,” says Jean Goussard, Solutions Engineer at Pragma.

A modern cableway is a complex system with diverse components which have varying maintenance requirements and replacement cycles. Apart from the general inherent mechanical demands of such systems, the location of the Table Mountain Cableway with aggravating factors such as the Cape Doctor’s gusting winds, the moist environment from clouds billowing over the mountainside, and the corrosive effects of the neighbouring Atlantic all contribute to its intensive maintenance programme.

Weather permitting, the Cableway transports 800 people per operational hour from the base station to the top of Table Mountain. The two cable cars each carry a maximum of 65 passengers (up to 5200 kg) while the floor of each cabin rotates to allow travellers to enjoy 360° views.

To best manage these demands and still guarantee the safety of the Cableway, an annual shutdown takes place in July/August when scheduled maintenance is performed. For continuous care and regular maintenance throughout the year, accurately planning and controlling the execution of refined maintenance schedules will further enhance the reliability and availability of this national asset.

Because of the nature of some of the more critical components, the use of appropriate modern technologies and tools is vital for the real-time monitoring of the health of these items. Such technologies will assist with the early detection of potential risks or failures, and data collected in this way can be analysed and used to identify trends that feed into advanced maintenance plans.

Emile Streicher, Executive Manager for Technical at the Cableway says, “The On Key system’s superior planning and scheduling functions and Pragma’s expertise in implementation and support were pivotal factors in our decision to select it as our enterprise asset management system. In addition, we plan to implement condition monitoring technologies on some of the critical equipment to monitor health and provide in-time warnings should preventative maintenance be required.”

Once the team start reaping the benefit of improved planning and scheduling with the use of condition monitoring data, they can consider applying technologies of the 4th Industrial Revolution for even more sophisticated methods to sustain the Cableway operation for generations to come.