Can you find your way? If you are an experienced miner, you can probably find your way most of the time in the mine. On the other hand, if you are not familiar with the mine (a new employee, subcontractors etc), it is not easy to find your way around and you might need assistance from an experienced miner. The drawback is that this occupies two people for the same task during training.
Lost equipment equals lost time
Even if you are an experienced miner, what if you must locate a moving machine that is in in need of reparation? In fact, finding equipment and machines is one of the common causes of wasted time in mining. A recent analysis from Canada shows that, 75% of the time, looking for equipment takes anywhere from 20 minutes to two hours, and the remaining 25% can take up to several shifts. This represents a significant loss of productive time in a typical 12-hour shift and is a common problem in most mines throughout the world. Even if you have a mining operations center with a centralized tracking system that lets you call for help, finding the right way can still be a challenge.
The perks of Mobilaris Onboard™
Mobilaris Mining & Civil Engineering’s new product Mobilaris Onboard™ is made to solve these problems. The solution runs on a standard Android tablet and enables any miner to know what is going on in the mine. Mobilaris Onboard™ gets all the real-time information about personnel, equipment and vehicles from the centralized Mobilaris Mining Intelligence™ solution. All information including mine maps is shown in 3D and is locally stored persistently, so that you can use it even when you are out of network coverage.
The system is equipped with a patent pending positioning algorithm called Mobilaris Hybrid Positioning™. It is based upon sensor fusion, artificial intelligence and advanced mathematics and allows for self-sustained positioning of a vehicle with 5-10 meters accuracy without any dedicated infrastructure for positioning.
How to reduce wasted time
Investigations have shown that a big reason for wasted time is that it takes a long time for personnel to find equipment at the start of the shift. With Mobilaris Onboard™, the user is able to visualize moving targets such as trucks in operation.
Another example is that at line-up meetings, supervisors primarily describe verbally where a piece of equipment or tool can be found. The description is usually loose in detail, with no visual aids or data on specific location. This further exacerbates the problem in looking for equipment, especially non-routine items like rammer jammers, switch boxes, power cables, drill gear boxes, etc. A power cable is an example of a piece of equipment available the last shift worked, but “walked away” on the next shift, as another job/crew required use of the cable. The return shift now arrives expecting the cable to be there, realizing it is gone and now an additional cable needs to be found.
Mobilaris Onboard™ is made to reduce this waste of time, since the exact location can be prescribed and visually presented in a line-up meeting and the optimal route can be visualized in vehicles.
Mobilaris Onboard™ at IMARC
Prior to IMARC 2019 (International Mining and Resources Conference) in Melbourne, Mobilaris will hold an exclusive event on October 28th – True digitalization of underground mining. During the event we will give an in-depth presentation of our latest solution for mining digitalization and productivity – Mobilaris Onboard™.
Download the invitation and more information about the event by filling out the form below.