Rifle-Shot Performance Holdings (Pty) Ltd. (RSPH) Specialist Implementation Partner for IS3 – Industry Software Solutions and Support also known as AVEVA Select Southern Africa, received the award for Best Business Value (ROI) at the IS3 Xchange User Conference, 2023. The selection process is rigorous, and detailed analyses are conducted on best value from the clients’ perspective.

Mafube Coal Mining realized the benefit of evaluating and implementing an automated system to manage their plant equipment downtimes, as a foundation to embark on their business and digital transformation journey. The creation of a like-minded partnership based on Mafube Coal’s mining needs between IS3 and RSPH focused specifically on clearly understanding the business needs and implementing proven best-in-class AVEVA technologies to achieve the desired results.

Before the start of this project, the challenges experienced by Mafube Coal were typica of most mines – manual data capturing when it came to production, material movement, quality and equipment downtime data. Minimizing time spent by operators on capturing plant downtimes manually was a priority for Mafube Coal.

Manual capturing of plant equipment downtime data meant incorrect start and end times were captured, there were no interlocking reason and description fields, classifications and analyses were a challenge, which left room for a lot of misinterpretation vs. factual data in near real-time.

In addition, various data sources in inconsistent data resulted in poor decision-making ability, and unnecessarily extending operational decision-making time. Lost time directly impacts bottom-line.

AVEVA’s Production Management System provides total visibility of controllable time vs uncontrollable time, uptime, downtime, reasons for downtime, estimated repair timeframes and planned maintenance programmes, giving better decision-making ability, more control and cost reduction due to unexpected stoppages.

The goal is to reduce downtime hours and attain quantifiable benefits from reduced stoppages.

Although this is Phase 1 of the Transformation Journey, Mafube Coal has already derived benefit by being able to instantaneously identify and remove obsolete line items and are now able to focus all attention on what is relevant and has tangible business impact on top and bottom line.

In addition, this resulted in improved customer satisfaction – both internally and externally.

Martin Maerien, RSPH Specialist ResultantTM, who is the lead on this important project, has vast experience in Value Chain Optimization and Visualization, and has become an integral part of Mafube Coal’s Operations Team.

“The professionalism displayed by RSPH Project Manager, Madelein Huxtable is far superior to what we have encountered previously,” said Tshepiso Mapoulo, Mafube Coal Digital Value Chain Lead.

Dilley Naidoo, Director at RSPH said, “Special thanks and appreciation must go to Tshepiso Mapoulo, Digital Value Chain Lead, and Prince Sibiya, PIT Business Improvement at Mafube Coal, who are the next generation of dynamic individuals, managing Mafube Coal’s Digital Transformation Programmes. We are privileged they have chosen to work so closely with us on their journey to business excellence!”

“What an honour to be serving Mafube Coal this way – a true win-win-win partnership between IS3 also known as AVEVA Select Southern Africa and RSPH.” – Dion Govender, CEO Digital Industries and MD IS3