BHPB is establishing the longwall at Douglas Park, about 30km north-west of Wollongong, as a replacement for the dwindling reserves at the company’s Appin colliery.
Douglas becomes the first underground site to implement the latest 4.6 version of MineSuite since its release in June. BHPB has been using MineSuite to monitor production and provide customised reporting at its underground Illawarra operations since 2001.
The production monitoring will measure metres advanced for the longwall and development units, as well as the amount of coal that passes over belts.
Maptek said the new MineSuite version included new features such as additional delay entry features and new filter options for data entry. Budget functionality and interface were improved and automatic emailing of reports to staff on site was now possible.
As MineSuite 4.5 is still used at BHPB’s Dendrobium, West Cliff and Appin sites, standardisation of equipment, events and delays reported makes consistent information available from these sites. This uniformity was carried over to the Douglas implementation. Maptek said systems at the remaining underground sites would be upgraded to v4.6 in the coming months.
“Because of its adaptability, MineSuite can be configured not only to meet the reporting and monitoring needs of staff on specific sites, but throughout BHP Billiton. Working closely with Operating Excellence staff and other key personnel such as coordinators for development, mechanical and gas drainage, prior to installation, allowed Maptek to ensure that the system would capture the critical information required,” Maptek said.
As part of the Douglas implementation, several reports were created for use across the sites. In addition, a weekly report pulls operation and production information from all four sites. This data can be analysed for comparisons between sites; for example, estimated metres for development units and reliability for the longwall operation.
Control room operators on site went to data entry training sessions as part of the implementation.
BHPB and Maptek have also finalised the implementation of MineSuite 4.6 to monitor operations in coal handling and preparation plants at Dendrobium and West Cliff. It is envisaged the production information from these databases will also be fed into the combined weekly production report, enabling up-to-date information to be available for site-wide and corporate decision making.
