Why the mining industry needs Asset Performance Management

Equipment reliability is a key factor in the success of asset-intensive organisations, such as mining and manufacturing companies. In the last few years, we have seen many of these companies turn to IoT (Internet of Things) and cognitive technologies to help improve this key factor of their business. Asset performance management (APM) can play a key role in the improvements of equipment reliability. However, less than 5% of companies have achieved an optimized APM program.

What is Asset Performance Management

Simply put, asset performance management is the management of strategies, technologies and frameworks. APM uses data you already have to maximum effect through data capture, integration, visualization and analytics. These are all tied together for the explicit purpose of improving the overall equipment efficiency of physical assets and to lower your total cost of ownership.

APM includes the concepts of asset risk management, reliability-centred maintenance (RCM), condition monitoring, and predictive forecasting. Well-documented experience has proven that asset performance improvement can only be realised by using a balanced approach and an integrated set of techniques.

Why the mining industry needs APM

The development and integration of IoT (Internet of Things) technologies have resulted in fundamental changes to the mining sector. There is an increased demand for mining companies to make use of data-driven insights to prevent unwanted asset downtime and  increase operational efficiency.

Implementation of these digital technologies and strategies that prevent asset downtime and increase operational efficiency is easy to embed, however, ineffective adoption practices can also result in ineffective use of the technology and a general sentiment that the technology is useless.

Asset management in mining: root cause analysis

What we see on the surface from a reliability point of view is that although we have implemented modern technologies and strategies we still experience: premature equipment failure, excessive overtime, lack of equipment oversight, and lack of adoption of new initiatives, all attributing to deferred or delayed production.

At the root of these surface-level issues, we might find a set of compounding root causes such as:

Improper use of technologies and lack of site adoption
Insufficient maintenance and inspections
Incorrect installation and commissioning

Our Solutions

At Integrove we have deployed various solutions to these root causes. Using a combination of subject matter experts (SMEs) and technology implementation expertise, we can assist your company with achieving success in APM. Through our frameworks, implementation methodologies and on-site experience in the reliability space, we can increase your asset health by assisting you in:

Being proactive and not reactive to planned maintenance,
Reducing maintenance spend,
Reducing the risk of unplanned failures,
Improving operational safety by shifting unplanned downtime events to scheduled maintenance,
Increasing operational efficiency.

Asset Performance Management at Integrove

Focusing on a single technique or buzzword in APM often leads to a deterioration in performance. For example, you might have condition monitoring and predictive maintenance solutions to evaluate the condition of equipment health, but you do not have the correct framework in place to action the insights from these evaluations. You have implemented the technologies, but you do not have the necessary tools to make sense of your insights. At Integrove, we use our SME’s knowledge and bespoke frameworks to assist you with achieving value from your asset performance management initiatives. We do not try to change your company culture; we work with you and adapt our frameworks to ensure you achieve value from your initiatives.

Our success stories

Recently a leading resource company on the global stage required assistance to increase their APM capabilities using condition monitoring and predictive maintenance technologies. Integrove assisted the company with ensuring the technologies were deployed to the correct assets and providing frameworks to action the insights generated by the tools, ensuring that value realization methodologies are in place to report to senior management.

Through our efforts centred on adoption and value realization, the company has managed to prevent more than 400 hours of deferred production after an impact factor, likelihood, and criticality of the asset on production are calculated (using a site-specific value realisation methodology for loss avoidance). Our industry experts have been instrumental in the adoption of predictive maintenance technologies to over 500 critical assets and continue to provide their expertise to our current clients and partners.

Throughout the years, our core business has evolved into what it is today, a specialist company delivering a comprehensive portfolio of services and solutions covering aspects of asset management.

Meet our experts

Lionel Buck

Lionel has +10 years of experience in different mining projects. His skills are focused on safety, client deliverables, asset performance management and more.

Willem Bouwer

Willem has 12 years of experience in the process, mining, manufacturing and water industries that includes excessive knowledge in consulting, engineering designs, research and development, and project handovers.

Gerrit van Eeden

Gerrit has developed a wealth of experience in engineering management, technology deployment, and the successful implementation of maintenance strategies and predictive maintenance technologies.