Haha up early rc and thanx once again
Mega day ahead for all longs
Slightly off topic but a really interesting read abt the collaboration between FMG and CATwith the AHS
IMARC 2016: Anthony Kirke, Group Manager - Operations Planning, Fortescue Metals Group
09 November, 2016 by Austmine
As part of Austmine’s day one Technology Stream at IMARC 2016, we were lucky enough to be joined by Anthony Kirke, Group Manager - Operations Planning, Fortescue Metals Group. Anthony was also previously the General Manager of FMGL’s impressive Solomon Mine’s operations and spoke to an audience of several hundred on how Fortescue have used innovation, in the form of autonomous haulage trucks, to drive productivity.
Fortescue introduced their first haulage truck in 2013 and now have 54 autonomous trucks. They have autonomously moved 240mt and their fleet actually features seven trucks that were retrofitted to run under the Caterpillar Minestar system.
Anthony and Fortescue decided to implement the autonomous haulage system (AHS) at Solomon as an engineering solution to a problem of both heavy and light vehicles on site not running efficiently and effectively enough. This was the biggest step change FMGL have made in this part of their business and has driven a knock-on step change in productivity.
Over the last three years since they implemented the first autonomous truck, the Solmon mine has maintained a 20% differential between their autonomous and manned trucks. Anthony noted that to measure the success of the move, they looked to two different factors: the hours you get out of each truck and the cycle time. In both ways, the autonomous trucks came out on top, due to their higher average speeds and reduced variability. The combination of these two elements has delivered significant productivity gains and cost reductions.
Anthony built on these observations, by noting that key to this success is the understanding that the technology straight out of the box wouldn’t have achieved this. Whilst an AHS truck is technically very smart, the original results when they initiated the program were not impressive in relation to productivity. It has been critical for Fortescue and Caterpillar to work together to achieve a balance between the safety and production systems built into the truck. The collision avoidance systems mean every little thing on the road surface can stop or significantly slow a truck, but they are absolutely required for ensuring safety of mine personnel. As Anthony summed up the challenge: one of the big keys to making autonomy work, is to figure out how you maintain safety without it hampering productivity.
This has been a journey for both the Fortescue people on site operating and CAT as their partner. Anthony gave a specific example of potholes in the haulage roads. The radar on the autonomous vehicle can’t determine how deep a pothole is, so when the truck sees one, it assumes the worst and slows to 5km/hour. Fortescue has worked with CAT on this challenge and come up with a fantastic solution.
When one of the trucks drives over a pothole the first time (slowing to 5km/h as per programming), it uses the suspension to measure how much the pothole impacts on the truck. Using that information, it calculates what speed the truck can do over the pothole and adjusts accordingly for the cycle. It also communicates this information to the other six trucks operating on the same cycle and back to the control room so someone can be dispatched to go down and fix the pothole ASAP.
Another challenge FMGL and CAT have tackled together is that of dust being mistaken for an object by the trucks. Boxes of dust were shipping over to CAT’s testing and development facilities in the USA and worked upon until they have been able to program into the truck radars to recognise the dust particles and not react to them.
Anthony noted the important discovery in this journey for both companies was when they realised they weren’t running an autonomous truck; they were in fact trying to automate the load/haul process – which is not the same thing! This prompted the partnership to look at how they could adapt the technology they had to the next step and, conversely, to adapt the processes to take advantage of the technology.
Anthony went on to make observations about how FMGL worked organisationally to implement the project. The site managers themselves worked with CAT to improve the productivity of the automated process, as opposed to Fortescue having a standalone technology group. Anthony made note that the site managers within FMGL have delegated authority to do whatever they need to do to hit their targets in the safety and cost space. Therefore, if they want to introduce a technology as a site, they can do, provided the business case is there. Anthony introduced AHS to get costs down at Solomon, as opposed to the implementation being an overarching FMGL initiative. The Solomon team integrated their own IT and hardware network and only handed it over to corporate IT after a couple of years, when it was running how they wanted. Anthony emphasised that site ownership is essential for the success of technology projects and noted that you can run technology from anywhere, but you cannot physically implement it from anywhere!
Providing advice to the audience, Anthony commented that running lean and delegating authority encourages innovation. The people who will run the system or technology need to take ownership of it. This is the key thing that drives FMGL and is evident in their results: five consecutive years of improvement on their safety alongside continuous and sustainable cost improvements with 11 consecutive quarters of C1 cost reduction.
This was achieved through the team revisiting and working on the areas they saw the biggest opportunity for cost reduction. They are now implementing building blocks for the mine of the future where they see it making financial sense.
The second part of their strategy is ensuring true partnerships with the people they’re working with. The partnership with CAT has been critical to the success of the AHS project and Anthony was careful to differentiate between partnerships vs. contractual relationships. CAT and FMGL explored together, made the occasion mistake, learned from it and moved on. Fast adaption was key and Anthony noted they had taken existing technology and adapted it, as opposed to trying to invent it.
In-house capability on knowing how to adapt the technology to Fortescue’s operations provided them their competitive advantage, as opposed to the technology itself. Anthony also commented that Fortescue had been careful to know how to operate and maintain their technology, as well as installing it. The ongoing relationship with CAT is about the software; everything else is done in-house by FMGL.
In summary, Anthony stated that innovation is about people, process and technology. You need to be very good at your processes before you automate them. He concluded: talk to your people. There are a lot of people displaced through automation, so you must be upfront and honest and talk to them. By doing this, you can achieve significant step change improvements.
(20min delay)