By Caroline Carter

The Southern African Institute of Mining and Metallurgy (SAIMM) is a professional institute with local and international links aimed at assisting members source information about technological developments in the mining, metallurgical and related sectors.

The key objectives of the Institute are to identify the needs of its members and to initiate and give effect to the means whereby the requirements for technology and scientific knowledge of the minerals and metals section of the South African economy are satisfied; and furthermore, to represent and promote the interests of its members.

One of the SAIMM’s activities for November , 2023 is to co-host a Webinar with Rifle-Shot Performance Holdings (RSPH) highlighting the benefits of using the right technologies to maximize reclaim turnaround and throughput efficiency with SMART Stockyard Management tools.

Challenges experienced by most mines associated with stockyard management include manual data capturing for production, material movement, quality and equipment data. Minimizing time spent by operators on capturing ore grades, quality elements and locations of ore bodies manually should be a priority. We all know that money is made and lost in operations.

Stockpiles are mountains on the move with variable grades. What if we could gain more site control and realise more profit?

When the end goal is optimal reclaim turnaround and better throughput efficiency, challenges are faced when you’re not sure where the optimal loading site it for a particular grade of ore, for a particular customer specification is located. Getting the required turnaround without collisions or overly stressing the plant equipment working 24/7 is another challenge. Add to that the inability to stack and reclaim at the same time, achieving desired targets becomes pretty difficult. And without X-ray vision into the stockpile, how do you prevent bogging?

Manual operations mean a lot of guess work, and implementing remedies after the fact, which slows down turnaround and throughput.

Well, what if the tools existed to help you manage all that? They do!

What’s required is a SMART Stockyard Management System that increases efficiency, reduces stress on reclaimer bearings by using the look ahead feature which predicts material spikes and scans the stockpile face to eliminate bogging, better quality control, with the ability to track quality metrics down to 0.1m3 blocks throughout the stockyard, and visibility of blending during stacking and reclaiming.

Track:  The stockyard management system enables you to track bulk material within the stockyard in real-time, and is highly accurate across coal, bauxite, iron ore and potash.

Automate and Optimise: A fully developed automation roadmap that can take a stockyard from manual operations through to full optimised automation, with efficiency gains of +25%.

Quality Management – the ability to track the quality of material into and out of the stockyard and within each stockpile. 

-           More efficient blending when stacking. 

-           Reclaim awareness. Know in advance what quality outcomes will be achieved for each reclaim option. 

-           Optimised quality control for export

-           Optimised efficiency outcomes for steel and power plants

-           Optimised environmental outcome.

-           Easy integration with a high-level port logistics systems, or the operator can directly select each job, and tasks are then automatically allocated to include optimised machine-level instructions.

This enables the site to meet customer requirements timeously, ensuring much better customer satisfaction!

A system like this optimally manages and automates the inbound receipt and outbound delivery of mined material. It can be easily integrated with a high-level port logistics system, or the operator can directly select each job, and tasks are then automatically allocated to include optimised machine-level instructions.

Join us on Tuesday, 14th November at 10h00 for a free webinar with Case Study entitled:

SMART Stockyard Management

Guest Speakers:

- Dilley Naidoo, RSPH Business Development Director AND  

Peter McPherson
Engineering Director - Smart Automation Products