MATERIAL DISTRIBUTION & LOGISTICS SOLUTION

THE SOLUTION

A large-scale real-time planning, scheduling and tracking solution for the day-to-day management of mining production & material dispatch operations for a large mining operation.

A large-scale real-time planning, scheduling and tracking solution for the day-to-day management of mining production & material dispatch operations for a large mining operation. The solution facilitated extensive automation for the entire inbound and outbound distribution of raw and resized materials involving processing of thousands of daily truck transactions over a multi-stage process. This included integrations with RF readers, boom gates, weighbridges and permit issuing authorities. The automation solution improved operational efficiency and turnaround time (TAT) significantly.

CLIENT

A state-owned mining group operating in a state whereby the province itself accounts for 55% of its country’s iron ore production.
The operation produces in excess of 9 MTPA with a footprint of just over 1650 Hectares. 50 000 Tons of material is dispatched which typically involves between 1500-2300 trucks processed a day and distribute the material to various consumers. The client required a bespoke integrated solution to automate the dispatch process and turned to DEVUM to build a customised solution.

THE PROBLEM STATEMENT

LARGE, DISTRIBUTED OPERATION

The operations are carried out over an area of 1650 hectares, that is connected via a 30 km road encompassing the entire mining area. The dispatch of materials is carried out from different stockpiles that are scattered within the mine boundary, which poses a great challenge during dispatch as trucks are allocated to different sites based on client orders and the material type to be transported.

DEVUM’s page builder was used to construct a map-based dashboard, which could visualise and manage all aspects of the operation with a bird’s eye view.

PROCESSING VOLUME

At any given point in time, the client required anything from 1500 to 2300 trucks to be processed, loaded and dispatched over a period of 12 hours. Additionally, several hundred truck transactions are processed as part of the mining production each day. Streamlining of the truck movement and loading operation is crucial to achieving the dispatch target set for the day and the current manual processing of trucks was not sufficient to meet the required benchmarks.

PROCESS MODELLER coupled with integration with RFID technology to form a cyber-physical interface allowed for automation of key stages of the process workflow, thus streamlining the dispatch process significantly.

MANUAL TRANSACTIONS

The entire process required that truck operators had to carry multiple documents to complete each of the 8 transactions involved from entry to exit. At each phase, the required information was manually uploaded onto the existing centralized government dispatch management portal and after completion of each transaction, reference numbers were manually penned down onto the documents carried by individual truck drivers. The entire process proved to be inefficient and required multiple manuals and time-consuming entries that were vulnerable to human error and delay.

DEVUM’s integration capability allowed for seamless integration with existing 3rd party systems, such as traffic management and government portals.

SAFETY

The above-stated manual transactions required that the truck operators disembark from their respective vehicles to hand over required documents making them vulnerable to accidents at the busy mining operation.

The DEVUM-built solution digitally transformed the operation, resulting in a drastic reduction of risk exposer for truck operators who were no longer required to disembark and share documents. Customized safety checks were also included in the re-imagined workflow.

SCREENSHOTS

BUSINESS VALUE