Hi Innovation pipeline: technology transfer in the oil industry.

Hi Innovation pipeline: technology transfer in the oil industry.

The oil and gas sector is using technology 

transfer to solve its most pressing problems:

Whether you call it oil money, or the more recent term petro-dollars, the hydrocarbon sector has long been a by-word for wealth. Countries with oil revenues are rich, and oil and gas companies have resources aplenty. It’s easy to assume that, with all that black gold (and whatever the equivalent term is for natural gas) flowing in, they can find the funds to do pretty much whatever they like.

In the dream of oil executives, perhaps; but not in the real world. In fact, finances in the oil and gas sector are squeezed as hard as they are everywhere else. ‘Oil wells can cost as much as half a billion pounds each to drill, and only a quarter of them are successful,’ explained Prof Ann Muggeridge, holder of the Total Chair in Petroleum Engineering at Imperial College London: in this sense, she added, ‘successful’ just means that the well contains oil or gas and says nothing about how much there might be or even whether it would be profitable to extract it. ‘So companies have to be very choosy about what they spend their finite resources on.’

In recent years, this has hit research and development particularly hard. Whereas 25 to 30 years ago, the major companies all operated large central laboratories and research departments that handled all their technological requirements, these have gradually been eroded in the cause of cost control. The result of this is that oil and gas companies are now major players in the area of technology transfer, casting around for research streams and technologies that might prove useful to them and bringing them into their portfolios.

- "The important thing for us is to have technologies that make us distinctive,.." Bob Sorrell, BP.

Each company has its own way of doing this, but BP’s vice-president of public partnerships, Bob Sorrell, explained that, in general, companies will have a suite of technologies that they consider to be core to their competitiveness and will tend to use their own research facilities to develop these specialities, and will depend on technology transfer for subjects outside these areas. ‘The important thing for us is to have technologies that make us distinctive; we talk about “technology at the point of competition”,’ he said. 

BP’s computing centre in Houston now has a capacity of a little more than one petaflop, making it one of the world’s fastest civil supercomputers.

In BP’s case these specialities include seismic studies and particularly imaging derived from seismic data. ‘We have an entire building in Houston that houses a supercomputer and a whole team dedicated to interpreting the data it produces,’ Sorrell said; this is focused on actually finding oil in geological formations. Downstream, the company is concerned with operating its assets in refining and petrochemicals, and assessing their structural integrity; the company invests significant resources into corrosion monitoring, for example. Also firmly in-house is the development of fuel and lubricant formulations, which produce the range of commercial products that carry the BP name or that of its lubricants brand, Castrol.

But even within the sphere of seismic imaging, the company might find it needs some help, Muggeridge said. As a subsurface specialist, Muggeridge’s area of expertise is how the oil behaves within the porous rocks of the reservoir itself; once it gets into the wellbore, as she said, ‘it’s someone else’s problem’. But the reservoir doesn’t just act like a wet sponge absorbing and releasing oil easily; it interacts with the hydrocarbons and other substances injected into the reservoir in complex ways. ‘The tools we use to predict the performance of the reservoir are quite complicated numerical programmes, and for things such as modelling the flow in the reservoir we would like to be able to use parallel computing. The equations that describe fluid flow are non-linear and closely coupled, and parallel computing is the best way to solve those, but the commercial software that people use is not very easily parallelisable; so one of the things we’re bringing in ideas from outside on is how to better parallelise computational flow dynamics codes.’

One example of this is in modelling the interfaces between different rock strata inside the reservoir. ‘In the oil industry we tend to think of things in finite volumes; everything’s broken down into discrete boxes; but in aerospace, for example, they’re quite happy to model surfaces using triangles and other polygons to get as close to the real shape as possible,’ Muggeridge said. ‘That hasn’t really come into the oil industry yet; but the shapes in the reservoir are curvy and awkward, so that’s definitely a place where technology transfer would be a way to progress.’

The oil and gas industry has also called for help in extracting oil, Muggeridge said. One example would be the BP project Brightwater in the 1990s, where the company wanted to improve recovery in reservoirs where the rocks had different permeability. ‘They’d inject water, but it would follow the path of least resistance into the more permeable rock and leave the oil in the lower permeability regions.’ BP approached several chemical companies, and eventually formed an alliance with Chevron and Nalco, with the latter company developing an additive that would ensure the water bypassed permeable rocks. ‘What was needed was some kind of additive that could be injected with the water, and would migrate a small distance from the well bore and then set, so that it didn’t damage the ability to inject. They decided it would be best be triggered by temperature, as seawater — which is what they were injecting — is cold and it warms up in the well. So what Nalco devised was a polymer that coils up on itself when it’s cold, but when it reaches a trigger temperature it bursts open like popcorn and blocks off those more permeable routes, so the water is forced into the less-porous strata and displaces the oil.’

The catalytic reformer No.3 at the Kwinana refinery in Western Australia.

Chemical firms are important technology-transfer partners for the oil industry, partly because they speak the same technological language. But also, as oil reserves become more difficult to extract from wells that have been exploited for some years, it becomes economic for industry to inject ‘something more complex than water’ to get it out, as Muggeridge puts it.

‘The existing additives tend to work at a specific conditions of temperature, salinity or mineralogy, so, increasingly, oil companies are going to their chemicals partners and are asking for additives that work at higher temperatures, higher salinities and in carbonate-containing rocks that are reactive, and if they can have something more environmentally friendly than polyacrylamide gels.’ If this can increase the extraction rate from 40 per cent of the reservoir contents to 45 per cent, it’s well worth the investment.

Sometimes, the research that proves key to an oil company’s technology isn’t so obvious. Bob Sorrell explained that after 27 years in the industry, he finds that talking to people who aren’t connected with it can unlock new approaches to problems in unexpected directions. ‘One example is barnacles on ships, which is a big problem; they stick to the hull and it then takes more fuel to propel the ship. We used to paint the hull with tributyl tin, which stopped them attaching, but that’s now banned,’ he explained.

Studies on barnacles has helped drive the development of new coatings.

‘So a group of scientists in Sweden looked at the larvae of acorn barnacles to find out why they attach in the first place; it turned out to be that the larvae could sense a change in their chemical environment, and you could use a polymer that wasn’t toxic but blocked that chemical change to stop them attaching. We were interested in that, because we operate a fleet of tankers, but there was more to it than that, because the next piece of work these scientists did was to look at deposition of proteins on prostheses, and then to look at build-up of materials on surfaces. And this brought us on to our own issues, such as the build-up of deposits that can cause blockages in production systems. We could apply the same thinking on how the deposits start to build in the barnacles as to blockages in upstream and even in automotive with build-up of deposits on fuel injectors and other parts of engines, and understanding in fundamental science can really help you there.’

Biological insights such as this could be increasingly important to the sector, and in even more direct ways. Companies are beginning to investigate a technique called microbial-enhanced oil recovery (MEOR), which, as the name implies, uses microorganisms rather than chemicals, or pressure from water or CO₂ in the reservoir to encourage flow into the well bore. MEOR works by using the microorganisms to change the interaction between oil and rock, but although it was first discovered in the 1920s, it has not fulfilled expectations, according to Muggeridge. ‘We just haven’t understood enough about how bugs behave and grow under conditions of high temperature and in a chemical-rich environment, but in the past few decades there has been such huge growth in knowledge of biotechnology and the genetics of these organisms that we might 

be able to finally exploit this technology.’

According to Sorrell, there are three reasons an oil company might choose to turn to technology transfer to solve a problem. ‘The first is that just by looking at the problem that you’re facing, you may just by talking to someone from a different sector get a fresh perspective on how to solve it. Second, someone may have solved the problem already. And third, it make sense to work in emerging areas, such as graphene, it makes much more sense for a group of companies to work together to understand what the applications are for this new area of science.’ BP is trying to broaden its reach into academic research by issuing open calls for research grants, he added.

But Muggeridge said that such decisions tend to be made on the basis of the specific problems that a company is facing at a particular time, such as getting oil or gas out of a specific well or group of wells in similar geology if they aren’t performing up to expectations. ’In my experience, the industry tends to be focused on its immediate performance and it isn’t very good at looking forward to long-term technology needs, although there are of course exceptions such as carbon capture and storage.’

One of the ways BP accesses technologies to transfer into its portfolio is via the International Centre for Advanced Materials (ICAM) of which Sorrell is associate director. Based at a ‘hub’ at Manchester University and with ‘spokes’ at Cambridge, Imperial and the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, it is ‘an essential part of BP’s innovation ecosystem’, Sorrell explained. ‘We call it an ecosystem because we believe we can achieve much more in partnership with others than we could on our own; we can leverage expertise more effectively through academic partnerships and joint ventures. We also have a corporate venturing model where we take equity stakes in small companies and get a position on the board, so we can observe technology development in those companies and understand how that’s developing in the market they work in, and that’s a very powerful way of understanding how they operate.’

In my experience, the industry tends to be focused on its immediate performance and it isn’t very good at looking forward to long-term technology needs, Prof Ann Muggeridge, Imperial College.

The desire of oil companies to engage across the sciences indicates one of the reasons that the oil industry has such a strong influence in academia. Its ability to fund research is one reason, although it tends to look at relatively small- to medium-term projects. But another reason is the sheer breadth of the science base it touches. It offers scientists an enormous range of challenging topics to study. An this may be why, despite the growing controversy over fossil-fuel investment, Bob Sorrell sees no unease within the scientific community about seeking funding or involvement in the oil industry. ‘It continues to be a mutually beneficial relationship,’ he said, ‘and for us, an increasingly vital one.’

Hi MENA’s Unemployment: The Facts!.

Hi MENA’s Unemployment: The Facts!.

Social initiative Silatech and innovation laboratory Visualizing Impact released an infographic about the state of unemployment in the MENA-region. They found that 28% of the MENA-region’s 15 – 28-year-olds are unemployed, which means that 7 million young Arabs get delayed in the job market.

If the number of unemployed Arab youths is halved, the region’s Gross Domestic Product can increase by $25 billion by 2018, according to the International Labor Organization.

Silatech’s CEO Tarek Youssef stated that unemployment hinders young people from getting married and having a family, which obstructs their capability to contribute to and build their community. “The anger and frustration we see in the news these days has its roots in the depression these young people feel due to lack of hope,” he adds.

In Egypt, getting married costs 11 times a single person’s household annual expenses – in other words, it is much cheaper to stay single and live alone. On average, a groom-to-be is asked to spend what is equivalent to his two-year-salary to pay for the wedding and marriage in Egypt, of which he usually pays 40%. His family and the bride’s family each contribute with 30%.

The independence age in the MENA-region for women (24 years) is close to the global average, however, the age for males lies at 29, the eldest in comparison to East Asia, Sub-Saharan Africa and South America & the Carribean.

Hi New Metal Working World!

Hi New Metal Working World!

Hi New Metal Working World Downloads! Subscription Editions!

Click image(S) to start download!

!!!THANK YOU FOR DOWNLOADING!!!

Hi Is Hyper spectral Imaging Ready to Take Off?

Hi Is Hyper spectral Imaging Ready to Take Off?

After the Deep water Horizon oil rig exploded and spilled oil in the Gulf of Mexico in April 2010, the U.S. space agency, NASA, deployed its Earth Resources-2 aircraft to detect the presence, extent and concentration of the spill. Equipped with the airborne visible/infra-red imaging spectrometer (AVIRIS), the aircraft collected data that helped researchers identify thicker parts of the spill by measuring how the water absorbed and reflected light.

AVIRIS calibrates images of the spectral radiance in 224 adjacent spectral bands. By comparison, a traditional RGB (red, green, blue) sensor used in colour cameras captures three bands. The NASA-deployed technology, known as hyper spectral imaging or imaging spectroscopy, allowed AVIRIS to document what satellites could not by distinguishing material properties otherwise undetectable by the human eye.

Although hyper spectral imaging is used primarily in remote sensing applications such as the Deepwater Horizon accident, new applications that include food safety inspection and life sciences are bringing the technology from the skies overhead to the plant floor.

Color infrared composite image made from three spectral bands of NASA's MASTER instrument mounted on the high-altitude ER-2. Red areas depict green vegetation in Las Vegas, Nev., on May 30. 2014. Source: NASA/Dean Neeley/Jeff Myers.

Hyper spectral imaging adds a third spectral dimension to standard 2D pictures in which each pixel contains dozens and even hundreds of values, each representing a section of the electromagnetic spectrum. A standard 2D image taken with a digital camera captures three values per pixel and splits the visible spectrum into red, green and blue values. In other words, a hyper spectral image is visualized as a “data cube” representing spectral and spatial information, typically covering the electromagnetic spectrum between 300 nano meters (nm) and 2,600 nm. Hyper-spectral images record 100 bands or more in the spectrum, whereas multi-spectral imagery typically capture about 20 channels.

Within the hyper spectral sensor, a specialized optic called a “diffraction grating” spatially separates the electromagnetic spectrum by wavelength. This data cube, essentially a stack of images with each one viewed through a narrow band of the electromagnetic spectrum, holds more data on the material properties of an object in the imagery field of view than with standard imaging techniques.

“Each object under view has a unique spectral signature, so based on how the sensor views the scene, we can make a real-time determination as to the material composition of the object,” says David Bannon, CEO of Headwall Phonetics, a spectral imaging manufacturer based in Fitchburg, Mass.

Hyper spectral machine vision has two critical components, says Adam Stern, senior scientist at Resonon Inc. in Bozeman, Mont. One component is the hyper-spectral imaging itself and the other is real-time statistical pattern-recognition software that uses the hyper-spectral data to control robotic actuators.

Benefit or Weakness?

Until recently, hyper-spectral imaging’s benefits have also been its weakness. While it provides a lot more data on a scene, the data flow can be too much for computers to handle in real time. As a result, it requires specialized knowledge to extract usable information from the massive amounts of visual data.

“Not only do you have a picture with a million pixels, but each pixel has 240 12-bit data points, so the datasets are enormous," Stern says. "Computers are finally getting big, fast and inexpensive enough to make this an economically feasible technology.”

These advances have enabled the adoption of hyper-spectral imaging in automated sorting applications where existing machine vision technologies or manual sorting fail. In the case of almond sorting in the food industry, for example,

A technician could train the hyperspectral system to recognize almonds based on spectral data. Source: Resonon.

Standard machine vision systems that are equipped with monochrome or three-color cameras often don't acquire this data, or they acquire it but without the spectral specificity to reliably make an automated decision.

Using software algorithms developed for multi- and hyper-spectral imaging systems, automated sorting systems can analyse data in real time and instruct a robot or other material handling system as to what to reject and what to accept.

Food inspection facilities have been early commercial adopters of hyper-spectral imaging, says Bannon, because of government safety regulations. In fact, Headwall sold its first hyper-spectral inspection instrument in the food safety industry to a major poultry processor five years ago following research and development conducted with the U.S. Agriculture Department.

“When you are in a regulated environment that is being controlled or overseen by a human, it’s a difficult job to be able to inspect food products at very high speeds,” he says. “The hyper-spectral sensors will run continuously and provide accurate and repeatable results.”

Not only is hyper-spectral imaging able to improve upon human visual inspection, but it also can replace traditional biological or chemical detection laboratory sampling experiments that require additional time and resources.

Expense and Training;

While advances in microprocessors, memory and high-speed data interfaces make hyper-spectral imaging more attractive to industrial users, the imagery themselves can be expensive and require trained technicians to keep the hardware calibrated.

Nano electronics research center imec (formerly the Interuniversity Microelectronics Centre based in Leuven, Belgium) builds its hyperspectral sensors directly on top of, and as an extension to, the image sensor. 

Other hyper-spectral instruments combine high and optical components and align the optical path.

In the sensor, each row essentially acts as a linear camera filtered to a specific spectral band. By scanning the camera across a target area, each row acquires a single line of a 2D image for a given spectral band.

Using software and computers, each new row constructs a 2D image for that spectral band. By combining continuous images from these rows, a 3D image block is created with the number of spectral bands limited by the size of the area-array image sensor. 

Different filters can be positioned over individual pixels meaning that other arrangements that do not require line scanning also are possible.

A camera with a standard area-array sensor can be fitted with an image sensor that contains imec’s hyper-spectral filter. 

The resulting camera retains the same dimensions, but features spectral capabilities with the same form factor. 

This enables the mass fabrication of hyper-spectral cameras and opens new applications that previously could not use hyper-spectral cameras, says Andy Lambrechts, program manager and team leader of Integrated Imaging at imec.

Imec manufactures the hyper-spectral sensors at wafer level, with each wafer containing tens to hundreds of imagery that are manufactured together. The process can use semiconductor industry equipment, which enables the alignment of spectral filters on a per-pixel scale. This approach reduces the optical complexity and cost of the hyper-spectral imaging camera, Lambrechts says.

Multiple Manufacturers;

Imec is partnering with multiple camera manufacturers, including Adimec, Tattile, Bayspec, 3D-One and VRMagic to bring this technology to multiple markets. 

One example is the xiQ USB3.0 camera manufactured by XIMEA of Münster, Germany. The camera measures 26 mm³ and weighs 27 grams. 

As earth observation platforms move from expensive satellites to more cost-effective, widely deployable unmanned aerial vehicles, Lambrechts says the need for compact hyper-spectral cameras will grow.

XIMEA CEO Max Larin sees expanding applications in a variety of industries, including life science instrumentation and medical imaging.

“You now have a portable device for express skin diagnostics, for example, that you can bring to the patient rather than bring the patient to the system,” he says.

Hyper-spectral imaging has been used in remote sensing for about 30 years, but the technology is still in its early stages within industrial and medical settings. As with any new implementation, growing pains are expected.

“Speed and resolution will always be a challenge for this technology, but it’s getting better all the time,” Stern says.

Furthermore, there is a lot of information in the short-wave infra-red (SWIR) spectral range that cannot be obtained with standard sensors. 

The near-infrared (NIR)-SWIR range from 900 to 1700 nm can be measured with conventional InGaS cameras, but many materials have reflectance signatures that extend to 2500 nm, Stern says, 

“Sensors in this spectral range often cost $50,000 or more, and the technology is just not there yet to affordable capture that data.”

Ease of use also will drive adoption. Headwall Phonetics’ Hyperspec imaging systems integrate a sensor, an embedded processor (containing a library of spectral signatures for comparison against data acquired by the imagery) and a diagnostic module within an IP-rated enclosure. This configuration reduces the number of components a customer has to buy.

Headwall also has prioritized software development. 

“We need to come in with robust, flexible application software capabilities that allow our customers to immediately understand the spectral composition of the product in the terms and nomenclature that they are familiar with,” Bannon says. 

Headwall’s software interfaces with upstream and downstream instruments such as robotic vacuum arms on the processing line to help users act on the data that is received.

Fulfilling hyper-spectral imaging’s commercial promise so far has seemingly been just one more technological advance away. 

Thanks to advances in processing power, economical hyper-spectral imaging sensors and software that simplifies the physics, the technology's day in the sun may be near.

Hi Salting The Earth: New Molten Salt Reactor Looks For Commercial Success.

Hi Salting The Earth: New Molten Salt Reactor Looks For Commercial Success.

Nuclear power has always been a delicate subject, and recent contamination issues such as those in Fukushima have put “traditional” nuclear power under the microscope again.

Thankfully, there’s an alternative: salt. Not the shaker kind or the sea variety, but molten uranium or thorium suspended in liquid and used to generate anywhere from 29 to 290 megawatts of electricity.

This isn’t a new technology, but new iterations have real potential in an evolving power market. The question is: What can this seasoned nuclear option bring to the table?

From Water to Salt:

In the late 1940s, American Naval researchers started looking for ways to put nuclear power plants into air craft carriers and submarines. The answer? Pressurized water reactors that used high pressure – on the order of 160 atmospheres – to keep hot water in liquid form even at 330 degrees Celsius.

The benefit? Lots of hot steam for electricity and propulsion. Downsides? The reactor was heavy, hard to maintain, and if something went wrong, radioactive components came blasting out with 160 atmospheres of force. In submarine jargon, that equates to “we’re all going to die.”

The Oak Ridge National Laboratory meanwhile, went looking for a lighter, less strip-the-flesh-from-your-bones way of getting nuclear reactors into airplanes – and they came up with the molten salt reactor (MSR).

Here’s how it works: Molten salts of uranium or thorium are mixed with water and undergo a continuous nuclear reaction, but without high pressure. If breached, there’s no sudden explosion and no risk of meltdown since the fuel medium is already liquid.

In addition, MSRs produce far less waste material than water-powered plants when decommissioned, and over 80 percent of MSR waste is short-lived. Despite their benefits, salt-based options lost out to other technologies in the early 1970s.

The Great White North:

Just as fashion trends re-emerge after a few decades of dormancy, so it is with nuclear power generation.

Power company Terrestrial Energy has plans to build prototype, low-enriched uranium MSR reactors in Canada over the next few years. The company is tweaking standard design by eliminating graphite as a high-temperature moderator and instead using a sealed reactor space with room for two modules: one in use and one cooling off.

Each unit will last seven years and used reactors will provide recyclable materials. Canadian performance-based licensing means the company should be able to achieve government approval in just a few years and then transition to U.S. applications.

Stay Salty:

The bottom line: In combination with solar, wind and natural gas power sources, MSRs makes more sense than highly pressurized and radioactive water.

Sure, consistent power plant maintenance is crucial to avoid the spectre of nuclear contamination but using a more familiar medium like salt cuts down on public superstition – no need to toss this one over your shoulder.

Hi Reverse Engineer Your Conveyor.

Hi Reverse Engineer Your Conveyor.

Timing, Timing, Timing!

Efficient manufacturing boils down to cohesiveness, and a major component of this is timing. When dealing with container handling solutions, that translates into timing screws.

With the ability to make or break production, it's important that you properly manage every aspect of your timing screws. 

In this case, knowing their functionality and terminology are a great starting point.

What are they?

Timing screws are perhaps one of the most critical aspects of a packaging line. 

Without them, your line is pretty much useless. 

The major function they have is to smoothly transfer containers between packaging machines.

They run on rotary equipment and are placed next to a star wheel so that they can accept, separate, accelerate, or discharge containers according to the machine's requirements.

Timing screws can be designed in many different shapes and patterns to accommodate the container they will be handling, but to make sure you're getting one that will work best for you, careful engineering and craftsmanship must be used to get it right.

Terminology;

There are a couple different terms that are useful to know when dealing with timing screws. That way when yours is getting designed, you know what elements the designer is referring to.

Pockets and Lands;

A pocket is basically the part that the container is nestled into when it's moved along the timing screw. 

This must be carefully measured and designed so that it fits the container precisely and properly.

The land is the part of the screw that protrudes out and holds the container in place on either side. 

As the screw spins, the land moves forward, holding and pushing the container with it. 

The land can vary in size and width depending on the container being handled and the function of the timing screw.

Lead Edge and Following Edge;

The lead edge is the edge of the land that is in front of the container, separating it from the container in front of it. 

The following edge is the edge behind the container that pushes it and keeps it nestled in the pocket (the area between the lead edge and following edge).

Discharge Pitch;

The discharge pitch is basically the distance from lead edge to lead edge-or from the front of one pocket to the front of the next pocket.

Root Diameter and Outside Diameter;

The root diameter is the diameter of the inside of the screw-the cylinder that the land protrudes from.

The outside diameter includes the land. 

So, this would be the measurement of the root diameter plus how far out the land protrudes on all sides.

Other Functions;

Although the main function of timing screws is to move containers along smoothly from one section to another, new designs and creative engineering has enabled them to do far more than just that.

For instance, timing screws can also be designed to accelerate or decelerate the movement of a container, divide containers, combine them, or even halt them momentarily, but these tasks are only possible if the screw is specially tailored to the shape of the container. 

So, as was said before, proper measurement and design is crucial.

Hi Whitepaper Week's Choice! Hi Cold Chain: Best Practices & Innovations.

Hi Whitepaper Week's Choice! Hi Cold Chain: Best Practices & Innovations.

With technological and operational advancements, supply chain professionals are more equipped to efficiently manage their operations.

Evolving the Cold Chain: Best Practices and Innovations explores these developments, details the recent evolution of the REFRIGERATED supply chain, and discusses how supply chain professionals benefit by implementing these practices.

Across warehousing, transportation, container technology, and other areas, learn how to progress your operation to better address the sensitivities and complexities of handling and transporting temperature-sensitive freight.

Download this free white paper to learn more. 

Click the following link here or view & save below;

Hi Industrial Shape! Hi Miners! Special Feature! You & The Mines!

Hi Industrial Shape! Hi Miners! Special Feature! You & The Mines!

Miners Download Booth!

*Special Report On Mining Innovation, Click The Following Link Here To Download Report!.

* Increasing productivity by improving collaboration across and beyond organisational boundaries, Click The Following Link Here To Download Whitepaper!.

* Business Risk Facing Mines & Metals Report 2014-2015, Click The Following Link Here To Download Report!. 

* Article Choice A Below;  Digital Tools for Mines Help Maintain a Competitive Edge!. 

!Digital Tools for Mines Help Maintain a Competitive Edge!

Many mining executives are convinced there’s really no alternative: either join the industry’s quickening interest in digital technology or risk losing ground;

By Russell A. Carter, Managing Editor E&MJ

The array of digital products and service choices available to mining companies is growing—as information technology (IT) consultants like to say—at the “speed of business.” For an industry that has traditionally viewed disruptive technologies with suspicion, generally espousing a “you try it first” approach, this can be an uncomfortable environment, particularly when commodity markets are soft and shareholders are closely watching how companies spend their money.

Recent survey results show that the industry realizes the demand for digital tools extends literally from its grass roots—exploration-data management—to daily operational and human-resource activities, and to the sophisticated enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems needed to make strategic business decisions. A company’s move toward higher operational efficiency based on effective use of data may no longer be defined, or confined, by what can be gained travelling the narrow lanes of a digital “highway.” In the future, it’s more likely to take the form of a digital immersion affecting almost every factor of mining activity, from the way projects are designed and managed to the tools and devices mine personnel will use—and wear—while on the job.

Surveys also indicate that many mining executives realize there’s really no alternative; either participate in the industry’s gradual embrace of digital technology or risk losing a competitive edge.

Maintaining an Edge;

In North America, for example, mining sector corporate investment in digital technology has increased over the past three years, and will continue to rise as companies seek to disrupt traditional business models to maintain their competitive position, control costs and stay viable, according to an Accenture survey of mining executives in Canada and the United States.

One-quarter of mining executives surveyed by Accenture — a management consulting, technology services and outsourcing company—said their overall digital investment in the past three years has doubled or more. Almost all companies surveyed (93%) are satisfied with their digital investment and the associated business outcomes. In the next three years, 33% said they will significantly increase their digital investment, 63% will increase their spending modestly, while only 5% will keep spending the same. No companies surveyed are planning to cut back on digital investments in the next three years.

Nine out of 10 executives surveyed said a business strategy that incorporates digital technology will revolutionize the way they do business to a degree similar to the advent of the Internet in the 1990s, and will provide a significant source of value to the business. Companies that do not embrace digital will lose their competitive position and may face extinction, according to 88% of respondents.

“Now more than ever, North American metals and mining companies are turning to digital, a new frontier for metals and mining companies to improve operations, productivity and identify growth opportunities,” said Jose J. Suarez, managing director, mining (North America), at Accenture. “We know that mobility devices can be used to track maintenance and reliability— and provide miners with better status updates that result in faster decision-making. Also, with analytic and Big Data, the integration of resource modelling data and operation status can help metals and mining companies to better control operational costs.”

Even so, the survey shows there is more work to be done for digital adoption within the metals and mining sector. While some North American mining executives are investing in digital to gain a competitive advantage (58%), some said they are just trying to keep pace with their competitors (42%). Whether they are trying to stay ahead or keep pace with the competition, almost all mining executives surveyed (96%) are projecting an increase in their digital investment in the next three years. Three-quarters said they feel they are ahead of their peers when it comes to digital.

Currently, digital programs are driving strategic decision-making and commanding support from senior executives (83%), according to the Accenture survey. Four out of five executives surveyed are using digital technologies across IT, business operations, finance and human resources. Looking ahead to the next five years, mining executives believe digital will improve company productivity (73%), reorganize operations (65%) and optimize the supply chain (58%).

As they invest in digital technologies, metals and mining companies are hiring more digital talent (88%) and adopting new digital technologies (95%). When looking at overall company return on investment, analytic s and Big Data are believed to hold the most potential (65%), followed by cloud (48%) and mobility (43%).

Accenture conducted the on line survey in February, involving executives at 40 metals and mining companies from medium to large organizations across Canada and the U.S. The company said the survey’s margin of error is 12% with a 95% confidence interval.

Maintaining Control

Managing data has become a critical concern in the exploration community, according to a report released by Geosoft following a January 2013 survey.

When Geosoft conducted a similar survey in 2011, only 18% of respondents identified managing exploration data a matter of “critical importance.” Now, 44% of them do, with another 38% regarding it as a “top five issue.”

Geosoft, which provides software and services for visualizing and managing geoscientific data, said it collected information from 415 organizations around the globe. The 693 respondents represented a cross section of roles within resource and energy exploration companies, industry service providers, government, and educational institutions. More than 60% were from the mineral resources industry, with the remainder coming from energy (11%), government (9%), educational organizations (5%) and other sectors.

Some key findings:

• Organizations are shifting data out of the hands of individuals and onto centralized servers. Forty percent of respondents now manage their drill-hole and geological data on a centralized server with a folder or file structure, while 51% manage geophysical and other survey data this way.
• Respondents want tighter control over their exploration data and a more efficient workflow. About two out of three would prefer a single commercially available platform or an in-house solution as opposed to outsourcing their data management, hiring consultants, or allowing users to manage their own data.
• Search tools, complicated workflows, data duplication and dependency on knowledge experts remain the biggest obstacles to data management.
• Most organizations spend four to eight hours on data management per week, with some spending much longer.
• The two most important outcomes associated with better data management were increased visibility and transparency for reporting and attracting investors (38%) and improved discovery rates (25%). Few (7%) considered a quick return on investment to be the most important outcome.

In summary, the report found that there is a growing need for effective data management in the exploration community in order to attract investors and improve discovery rates. Although organizations are getting better at centralizing their data on a single platform, more work needs to be done to increase data accessibility, reduce duplication, smooth workflows and lessen dependency on experts.

Software developers seem to understand that many of the data-related problems cited in the Geosoft survey are applicable to the entire scope of mining, and beyond. For example, to help drive greater collaboration at mining operations and with off-site offices and consultants, Dassault Systèmes GEOVIA recently noted that its Surpac underground mine design package and Minex coal geology and mine planning software are now directly integrated with GEOVIA Hub and its data-sharing capabilities. This ensures users have access to the right data, so that:

• Project files are published into Hub, enabling users to easily verify they have the most up-to-date data.
• Repetitive verifications on data are eliminated since version confusion no longer exists.
• Auditing of a file’s version history shows who made changes to it and when.
• Fast roll back to previous versions of data is available if required.
• By facilitating simpler and more effective means of sharing data on site or with remote locations, personal and cross-functional productivity and confidence in data is increased.

GEOVIA noted that with under-performing mining assets impacting share prices, mining CEOs are looking to improve financial returns and boost free cash flow by driving growth through better management across the mining value chain. By making better and faster decisions from the rock face to the port, processes can be made more efficient, mineral resources used more effectively, and wasteful practices eliminated. The end result is a healthier bottom line and increased sustainability.

The ability to meet those desired results, according to IBM and other suppliers of Big Data solutions, is to recognize that a company’s IT resources can be buried under mountains of data from continuously flowing streams of monitoring and metric data from networks, servers, storage, databases, mobile infrastructure, applications running in external and internal clouds, events and operation logs, to name just a few. In fact, it’s estimated that 90% of the data that exists in the world today has been created in just the past two years.

Based on the results from the Accenture survey, it appears that mining executives are willing to spend money on information technology to meet this problem, but whether the investment reaps all the prospective benefits expected, or even achieves basic project objectives, is not always assured.

Maintaining Excellence:

One approach larger corporations are taking to ensure their IT-related investment goals will be achieved is through centres of excellence. According to The Hackett Group, a global business consulting company, leading businesses are increasingly implementing centres of excellence as a means of efficiently and effectively managing specific complex business tasks. Centres of excellence are teams of people with specialized expertise who work together to develop and promote best practices in their area of responsibility. Centres of excellence may provide subject matter guidance to the rest of the enterprise, or may deliver tangible business services. Examples of business tasks around which centres of excellence may be created include project management, quality assurance, regulatory compliance, business analysis, continuous process improvement, and enterprise performance management.

The most recent example of this trend is Rio Tinto’s launch of its Processing Excellence Centre (PEC) in Brisbane, Australia, the latest phase of its Mine of the Future technology and innovation program that, according to the company, is driving greater value by optimizing the performance of key international copper and coal operations. The Brisbane centre, said Rio Tinto, is a world-first, state-of-the-art facility that enhances monitoring and operational performance by examining processing data from seven of its operations spread across the globe.

An expert mineral processing team operating out of the PEC shares technical initiatives and solutions to colleagues on mine sites in Mongolia, the United States and Australia about how to maximize productivity and improve performance.

With the aid of a giant interactive screen, technical data is monitored and analysed in real time, allowing processing improvements to be immediately introduced and operational performance to be optimized. The company said a trial phase of the PEC has already led to various procedural enhancements, such as adjusting the flotation process, which increased the recovery of copper and gold at Oyu Tolgoi in Mongolia.

The PEC is also linked to copper processing at Rio Tinto’s Kennecott Utah copper operation in the United States, as well as five coal sites in Australia. Rio Tinto worked with JKTech, Schneider Electric, Metso CISA, iGATE and the University of Queensland through the Rio Tinto Centre for Advanced Mineral Sorting to develop the PEC.

Among these partners, Metso CISA has developed a number of Advanced Process Control (APC) tools that include OCS and OCS-4D software with embedded expert system, fuzzy logic, modelling and optimizing modules, MPC, neural networks, vision and acoustics analysis algorithms. Among its more well-known systems are VisioRock for rock/particle size measurement, and VisioFroth, for flotation froth velocity control. These and other CISA systems have been used at some of the world’s largest mines, including Escondida in Chile and Antamina in Peru.

Schneider Electric said its services support the analytics for the centre, and also provide regulatory control on instrumentation and data management for the seven mine sites.

Phil Barrett, Schneider’s global account director for Rio Tinto, said, “The PEC is really pushing the boundaries of technology in terms of communication architectures, virtual environments and remote connections. As a result, it has become a truly collaborative environment that centralizes many varied and complementary skills, leverage the vast experience and expertise of its people, to work as one team delivering significant savings to Rio Tinto.”

Schneider also announced in February the release of StruxureWare for Mining, Minerals and Metals, a suite of applications aimed at optimizing production operations. The StruxureWare suite integrates process control, operations management and energy management to “allow customers to gain actionable insight into their entire operation,” according to the company, which noted that with the ability to manage and analyze data generated in real-time, customers are able to reduce operation costs and waste and increase safety.

According to Schneider, the suite can improve energy efficiency by combining energy and production data to allow operations and energy managers to work together to optimize operational demands and energy and water consumption to reduce costs. In addition, it provides visibility into enterprise and supply chain performance and analyses results over time to identify areas for improvement.

The StruxureWare mining suite consists of:

• Resource Advisor: tracks and manages energy and carbon costs;
• Energy Operation: transforms data into essential energy information;
• Plant Operation: combines energy and process data for visibility into asset performance;
• Supply Chain Operation: optimizes the supply chain;
• Power Monitoring Expert: collects and organizes data from the electrical network;
• PowerSCADA Expert: manages the power network based on telemetry systems that transform data into useful information; and
• Process Expert: integrates application control and supervision into a single environment.

Maintaining Machine Productivity:

As an example of a solution focused on a somewhat smaller-scale application—but with important implications for producers of all sizes—IBM announced in February a new collaboration with Thiess, one of the world’s largest contract miners, to use Big Data to improve machine availability and operational productivity utilizing predictive analytic s and modelling technologies. This initial collaboration focuses on Thiess’ haul trucks and excavators to help unify asset management and business operations.

Many fleet operators still rely heavily on either a “fix-it-when-it-breaks” approach or time-based scheduled maintenance techniques. These methods often result in unnecessary downtime, premature component replacements, extra expense and lost production. They also do not explicitly factor in an individual piece of equipment’s actual condition and performance capability.

However, this trend is changing. Increased deployment of machine and environmental sensors combined with new data collection methods is enabling the development of predictive machine maintenance analytic s, which can help increase equipment availability, lower production costs and provide greater operational flexibility.

The IBM and Thiess collaboration integrates current and historical machine sensor data, along with maintenance and repair, operational, and environmental data to use as a basis for data-driven operational optimization. Factors such as repair and inspection history, payload size, sensorbased component alerts, operator variability, weather, and ground conditions are being used to construct models, which assess and predict the life of discrete components and the overall health of a piece of equipment. This information will enable decision makers to co-optimize maintenance and production decisions, resulting in better operational performance.

“Analytic s and modelling can offer great opportunities to improve our business, but we need to integrate them with our current processes in order to have a real bottom-line impact. Working with IBM to build a platform that feeds the models with the data we collect and then presents decision support information to our team in the field will allow us to increase machine reliability, lower energy costs and emissions, and improve the overall efficiency and effectiveness of our business,” said Michael Wright, executive general manager–Australian mining, at Thiess.

Early detection of even minor anomaly and malfunction patterns can be used to predict the likelihood of component failures and other areas of risk. This will dramatically increase the uptime of the equipment and improve Thiess’ ability to manage the full life of discrete components, overall machine health and the deployment of limited maintenance resources.

Matthew Denesuk, manager of Smarter Planet Modelling and Analytic s at IBM Research, said, “By combining knowledge of the physical health of the equipment with information about how it needs to be used, we are able to know when something is going to go wrong and what can be done to fix the root problem before that occurs.”

IBM said developing a unified predictive equipment and operational management system requires finding common connection between physical and computer scientists, who often operate with different skill sets and goals. The models used in this project bring together the physical and digital worlds by supplementing datadriven modeling that computer scientists tend to employ with information from engineers who have first-hand expertise about the mechanics of the equipment.

Predictive machine management bases decisions about a machine’s maintenance and operation on the actual condition or health at that given time. It also has the ability to predict the health of a given machine far enough in the future to enable decision makers to execute correct actions such as adjusting production plans or ordering spare parts.

As an example, IBM posited a mining scenario in which several haul trucks may be reported to need maintenance, while at the same time a substantial order of product is due for delivery in 11 days. The predictive machine management system will be able to look at a variety of options for addressing this problem, and provide a decision maker with a model-based prediction that if the trucks are loaded no more than 85% of normal capacity and driven at no more than 80% of normal speed, the failure probability over the next 11 days would be minimal. This allows companies to avoid costly downtime at the sacrifice of only a minor, temporary decrease in throughput.

Business analytic s is also at the heart of MineSight Performance Manager software, released in 2013 by Mintec. “MineSight Performance Manager is designed to fill a need for coordinated, actionable reporting, analytic s and decision support at mine sites,” said Mintec President John Davies. “Right now, this need is largely being filled by spreadsheets at many sites. Data for those spreadsheets is often cobbled together from multiple third-party sources, a time-consuming process, which brings with it the risk of error and misunderstanding.”

Mintec said the launch of Performance Manager builds on the functionality of MineSight Axis. Operators use MineSight Axis for real-time reporting of production data and dynamic design of blast patterns. MineSight Performance Manager adds improved data integration tools and a focus on business intelligence and analytic s via dashboards that offer streamlined displays. It supports data gathered with MineSight Axis Drill and Blast tools, and according to Mintec, includes model-to model reconciliation, fleet management system production data to model reconciliation, and mill to model reconciliation with data gathered by the MineSight Axis Grade Control tools.

Maintaining Mobility

Although getting control of the Big Data dilemma is likely a primary concern in corporate executive suites, rapidly advancing mobile digital technology offers an avenue for getting appropriate data and interactive capabilities to personnel on the ground.

MicroStrategy Inc., a provider of enterprise software platforms, announced earlier this year that Kinross Gold Crop. has deployed an iPad application using Micro-Strategy Mobile for its global mining operations. Kinross, the fifth largest gold producer in the world, has mines and projects in Brazil, Canada, Chile, Ghana, Mauritania, Russia and the United States.

MicroStrategy said Kinross sought a mobile solution that could address its diverse workforce, provide near real-time feedback on mining operations, and give regional supervisors the ability to input data directly from the mines without the need for PCs. According to Alexis Ricordi, director of project management, Kinross’ analysis of the available analytic s vendors included considerations for platform speed, ease of use, mobile functionality, speed to development, and total cost of ownership.

Kinross has taken the approach to develop once and deploy everywhere. “When developing dashboards at Kinross, we make sure that we design them to run on PCs as well as on mobile equipment,” said Ricordi. “One of the biggest advantages of MicroStrategy is that we can develop them once and they can be available to the users on multiple platforms.”

MicroStrategy said having a mobile application has benefited Kinross’ fleet management supervisors. The Kinross iPad application is used across multiple sites in different countries, and automatically changes based on the language needed. Additionally, with transaction services, the supervisors are able to input data directly from the field, which speeds up decision-making.

Last year, MicroStrategy conducted a survey on dashboard use among a diverse group of participants. Predictably, 78% of respondents said they would prefer to access their dashboards via a mobile device. In fact, mobile dashboard delivery was ranked as the most preferred method for receiving, viewing and interacting with dashboards. Yet, only 28% of respondents have mobilized dashboards; the majority still use desktop machines. Despite the rise of self-service analytic s and the increased adoption of mobile devices at large enterprises, users at most organizations remain tethered to desktop machines for their analytic s.

MicroStrategy maintains that today’s users are accustomed to on-the-go information in their personal lives, so it no longer makes sense to expect them to be restricted to a desktop. Having analytic s deployed as a native app on smartphones or tablets not only allows for mobility, said the company, but it also enhances the capabilities of information-driven apps by making full use of all of the sensor inputs available on mobile devices.

It’s a trend that seems to be gathering momentum, with many major industry vendors offering mobile apps that provide product catalogues, dealer contact information and more. A good example is Caterpillar’s Product Link, a remote monitoring and asset management solution, and its VisionLink interface, which the company says makes it easy for a manager to monitor data from a whole fleet and then zoom in for a detailed look at individual assets.

Fleet managers’ ability to monitor equipment remotely has been improved with the latest release of VisionLink, providing customers with a mobile optimized Web application, the ability to schedule automated delivery of VisionLink reports, and remote access to on-board payload system information.

The mobile application is available on iOS, BlackBerry, Android/Chrome and Windows operating systems. Introductory functionality enables viewing the location of assets on a map, tracking scheduled services, viewing fault codes and open alerts, and accessing idle, working and runtime data through a smartphone.

New productivity functionality leverage's existing on-board payload systems for wheel loaders and off-highway trucks equipped with such systems. Managers can remotely monitor information such as total payload moved per day and total payload per hour and per unit of fuel.

On the stationary-asset side, AVEVA, which provides engineering design and information management solutions for several industrial sectors, announced that its Everything3D (E3D) Insight application is now commercially available for project managers in the mining industry. This Windows 8.1 app enables mobile users to comment and approve E3D designs from a tablet device. Developed in collaboration with Microsoft, it provides the ability to inspect, comment upon, and approve designs at any time, from anywhere around the world, according to the company.

“Over the years, we have seen how many companies struggle to effectively collaborate across their supply chain,” said Bruce Douglas, senior vice president—product strategy and marketing at AVEVA. “AVEVA E3D Insight overcomes this challenge by providing an innovative and intuitive mobile platform on touch-enabled tablets and laptops connecting directly to the design model and its community of designers. The improved reach and efficiency of collaboration that AVEVA E3D Insight brings is an important component of AVEVA’s revolutionary Design for Lean Construction initiative. Initial feedback from customer evaluations, including WorleyParsons and Technip, as well as user meetings has demonstrated strong alignment with industry requirements.”