Cohesive helps a diamond mine to shine again
A large African diamond mining group with several distributed mining operations could not optimize its value due to an uncoordinated enterprise asset management approach. Cohesive put them back on track.
Summary
Through Cohesive applying ISO 14224 Master Data standards and ISO 31000 standard risk and criticality analyses, a mining group that got bogged down before, now implements an enterprise asset management system that limits downtime. It implements proactive management of asset data in a manner that enables the prioritization of maintenance (as well as asset life cycle) of each productivity high-risk asset.
Solutions
The Challenge
A large diamond mining group – operating several highgrade ore mines in Africa – struggled to meet production objectives. For several years, the yield from the mines fell far short of the potential, with the mines operating under centralized corporate oversight.
Cohesive was contracted to optimize plant maintenance across all mining operations through the creation of an accurate plant asset master dataset and the development of a risk-based maintenance strategy, tactical plan, and defined execution tasks.
Our Solution
The first step was to conduct gap analyses at the various mines. This revealed the following main contributors to the group not achieving its targets:
- Incomplete asset registers in the respective Enterprise Asset Management systems
- Major gaps in risk identification assessments
- Poorly developed maintenance tactics
Alongside the mine management, Cohesive conducted a logical physical walkabout documenting all assets in accordance with ISO 14224 – the Master Data Standards.
In the process, all existing Piping & Instrumentation Diagrams were corrected and updated to ensure the capturing of all assets as well as the proper structuring of assets.
Utilizing ISO 31000 conforming software solutions, Cohesive conducted asset risk assessments with the client across all asset classes as well as critical asset components.
Based on these asset risk ratings, a Planned Maintenance (PM) program was developed.
- For all assets with critical and high production loss risk, comprehensive Reliability Centered Maintenance analyses were conducted to ensure mitigation of failurefor these assets.
- The maintenance tactics for assets with medium production loss risk were standardized across all mines by challenging the status quo procedures and adjusting these to Cohesive’s Industry Best Practice Solutions.
- The existing PM tasks for assets with low risk were critically challenged resulting in major workload reduction.
- KPIs and reporting structures to drive the execution of critical tasks were developed, thus enabling management to detect maintenance activity deviations.
The Client Benefits
The client’s production benefits from a consistent and comparable as-built asset hierarchy across all mines. This not only simplifies reporting, assessments, as well as asset management decisions but also ensures consistency in asset management data for financial planning and budgeting.
Using their SAP enterprise asset management system, all assets with a direct impact on production performance can be shown on dashboards, resulting in quicker response, improved yield and less downtime.
The mines experience a lower incidence of unplanned stoppages due to the focused maintenance tactics and PM plans.
The equipment and spares inventories are coordinated and aligned to the EAM system which improves planning efficiency, ensuring sufficient in-house stocking of critical equipment and components as well as reducing waiting times for spares.