{"id":14282,"date":"2019-01-09T11:00:14","date_gmt":"2019-01-09T19:00:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.palada.net\/index.php\/2019\/01\/09\/news-8034\/"},"modified":"2019-01-09T11:00:14","modified_gmt":"2019-01-09T19:00:14","slug":"news-8034","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.palada.net\/index.php\/2019\/01\/09\/news-8034\/","title":{"rendered":"Bulk Material Handling. It\u2019s just moving dirt"},"content":{"rendered":"

Credit to Author: Greg Johnson| Date: Tue, 08 Jan 2019 21:10:03 +0000<\/strong><\/p>\n

After a year looking intensively at the metals processing side of mining, I recently spent some time back in bulk material handling. \u00a0And after a plant tour not long ago, a colleague new to the business somewhat naively (but accurately) observed, \u201cIt\u2019s just moving dirt.\u201d<\/p>\n

Well, yes, it is, but it\u2019s moving A LOT of dirt, with huge equipment, and exacting quality requirements, in a process that consumes a lot of energy!\u00a0 And don\u2019t forget that there are big financial penalties for delays and errors, making that simple sounding act of \u201cjust moving dirt\u201d a high stakes game that is not so simple after all.<\/p>\n

\"\" <\/p>\n

So I thought I would take some time to reflect (that\u2019s what we do at the end of each year, right?) on the many areas of mining in which digitization is helping to make bulk material handling just a little easier.<\/p>\n

Material Movement <\/strong><\/p>\n

Once extracted from the earth, millions of tonnes of ore are moved via conveyors, stackers, reclaimers and shiploaders. It is a formidable effort to track the information flow (quantity and quality) as well as the actual ore itself. Errors result in ore shipments possibly being delayed, or shipping ore of either higher quality than required (= lost revenue) or lower quality (= contract penalties). Some of the digital solutions that should be looked at to avoid these issues include:<\/p>\n