Capital Equipment News September 2019

approach to maintenance and minimises unplanned stoppages, hence increased machine availability or productivity. Metso Metrics is our digital platform that connects Metso experts to our customer base and enables seamless collaboration in impacting their productivity.” According to Philipp Nellessen, CEO thyssenkrupp Industrial Solutions – sub- Sahara Africa, one of the current challenges when it comes to productivity increase questions is the lack of reliable data or data at all. He reasons that the first step of digitalisation is therefore to make the processes/problem visible, either by equipping machines with sensors or using digital technology like drones. “Thereafter, digitalisation offers a vast amount of opportunities from simulations up to expert based pattern recognition to optimise the process, avoid unwanted operating conditions and maximise resource utilisation. The breakthrough is thereby the on-time visibility. Today miners can get operating stages in seconds, which in the past were only reported in daily diaries. They can, for example, take one of our tk drones, quickly fly over a stockpile and know exactly how much is on that stockpile. This enables miners to react a lot faster,” says Nellessen. The same view is shared by Zulfikar Umar, remote diagnostic centre manager at SKF South Africa, who says that one of the challenges in the industry today is gathering information from different sources in the plant and extracting meaningful data that can be viewed and displayed in a manner which makes sense to various stakeholders who might have very different roles and functions within the business. “Digitalisation enables different data streams which would have traditionally been compartmentalised, to be collated and analysed from a macro perspective for smarter decisions, quicker reaction times and better planning of operations,” says Umar. Lourens Zeelie, online condition monitoring specialist at SKF Group, tells Capital Equipment News that full digitalisation enables more precise control and monitoring. Data cannot only be collected and stored anymore, it can be sorted and displayed on dashboards in a way that is easily understandable and relevant to the specific person. “A manager is only interested in a certain aspect such as throughput and profit. An operator on the other hand needs to control the plant and therefore needs more detailed information such as temperatures, pressures and flow rates. Digitalisation makes data more accessible and optimisation easier

Digitalisation makes data more accessible and optimisation easier through complex computer models.

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Digitalisation makes data more accessible and optimisation easier through complex computer models

One of the current challenges when it comes to productivity increase questions is the lack of reliable data or data at all

There are four key digital technological areas that are receiving attention from industry, namely, computation power, data analytics, human- machine-interface and robotics

Data analytics play a significant role in the digitalisation process. It is the process of interpreting and understanding what is being measured. When done correctly, it will result in better understanding of the process and the drawbacks

Every plant will have critical and non-critical equipment. Online monitoring devices are usually used for critical equipment and hand-held data devices used when the equipment does not warrant expensive online devices

Connectivity and data are crucial in digitisation – some of the main benefits in digitalisation are derived from the real-time access to information derived from a vast amount of data

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