Anglo American officials were using basic diagnostics to monitor equipment, but wanted to move beyond "breakdown and recovery" mode to a more predictive framework that would optimize performance across the entire longwall system at its Moranbah North Mine in Queensland, Australia.

Solution design 

Using Smart Solutions, we used data to provide a detailed understanding of the entire longwall operation at the mine. The team used their experience in mine optimization to pinpoint areas for improvement and identify relationships between potential causes of delay.  

The team used weekly meetings, status reports and monthly snapshots to make the system's functions clearly understandable to the operations staff.

The responsibility to achieve more “feet mined in the first production hour” was handed to the idle shift crew. When higher levels of production were achieved, that crew then got the credit.

Through the partnership and detailed analysis, the team was able to unequivocally recommend and validate changes to operating practices, parameter changes and even equipment design.

Results

Anglo was able to achieve 111 longwall operating hours per week, on average, during the mining of a complete longwall block at Moranbah North Mine.

Supported by the partnership, the mine was able to double the number of cutting hours per week and increase cut rates by 15 percent.