Peytec Smart Tags - Gold Mine
IIoT Solutions
Gold Mine Finds Solution For Product Lossess With Cutting-Edge IIoT Technology
With valuable product being lost in their ore, and virtually no way of tracking the product, a gold mine recognized the need to find a solution quickly in order to recover any losses. Peytec provided the gold mine with a complete IIoT solution to recover the location of their product, and to track it with real time data communication.
Challenge
A gold mine had lack of visibility over their muck piles. In random quality control processes, the miner had found that some of the ore piles ended up in the waste route, and vise versa. The challenge was to deploy a cost effective and reliable method to continuously control quality of material handeling for all muck piles in real-time.
Solution
Peytec designed a real-time Muck Tracking System, which is an Industrial IoT product designed to give muck piles a digital voice. When a muck pile is identified as an ore or waste pile, a Peytec Smart Tag gets utilized on the pile. The Smart Tag then gets blended with the rest of the muck pile. As the pile is transported, it gets tracked by the real-time Muck Tracking System.
Result
One of the major issues with existing technologies such as RFID is its limitations to transmit signals through rocks and piles of muck. Peytec’s (WPSNTM) technology has demonstrated that you can communicate data through rocks and 20 tons of muck. Thus resolving the issue of unreliable wireless communication with respect to RFID tags.
The Heart Of The Issue
TA gold mine wanted the ability to gather all of their ore, after finding that some of it was being placed in areas that were difficult to uncover. The lack of continuous, cost effective, and real-time quality control methods to monitor the traceability of product, its transportation, and its milling process all resulted in productivity losses. Material mishandelings, human errors, and process errors ultimately led to ore piles ending up in waste routes, and vice-versa. These errors can cost mines millions of dollars in losses per year.
Creating A Best In Class Solution
Westburne and Peytec worked together in order to craft an innovative solution for the gold mine. The mine had a clear challenge in tracking the production and inventory of their ore, as well as difficulty with data reporting during the mining process. Peytec’s Muck Tracking Sytem allowed a cost effective, automatic, and real time solution. The system removes human intervention, and adds a high level of accessibility to the mining data. All of the data can be accessed anywhere in the world, and this is thanks to the cloud connectivity of the tracking system.
The MuckPuck are extremely robust in the mining envionment. They can be buried several feet under rock and debris, while still maintaining the ability to send a signal for tracking information. The MuckPuck’s utilized in the mine were also designed to be easily collected and disposable. MuckPuck’s have the ability to be customized based on use, whether long term or short term.
The Right People Working Together
Westburne’s dedicated IIoT team along with Peytec utilized their extensive experience in the Industrial IoT field, in order to create an innovative solution for the gold mine.
Exceeding Customers’ Expectations
The gold mine now has the ability to track all of their mining process in real time 24/7 from anywhere in the world. There is no longer any confusion around which piles of product go to waste, versus processing. Now employees have the ability to easily collect, review, and save their daily inventory product data. The Muck Tracking System has resulted in the mine reducing their losses every day.