Coates Industrial Solutions has been a one-stop solutions provider for site maintenance and shutdowns for over 50 years and, through the development of a game-changing technology offering, is now providing customers with even greater service and safety while helping to reduce their costs and cut emissions.

The product is a state-of-the art, retrofit telemetry device, designed, and manufactured in conjunction with Tasmanian technology house Definium Technologies.

Launched late last year, the telemetry platform, when fitted to equipment collects data around machine usage through engine vibration.

The cutting-edge IOT (internet of things) innovation is the latest in end-to-end, scalable, and bespoke solutions being provided by Coates nationally through more than 150 branches along with 24/7 customer support.

"Coates' retrofit telemetry devices are all about providing customers greater insights and learnings into the performance and utilisation of site maintenance equipment," Steven Stavrou, Coates' Industrial Services Manager - East Coast, explained.

"Having a total understanding of how a piece of site equipment is being used allows for new project efficiencies as well as reduction in emissions and costs to the customer."

Named ‘Rapid Fit', the device requires no wiring and is purposefully designed to reduce installation time and expense, key motivators for a business that constantly challenges itself to provide faster more efficient turnaround times to benefit customers.

"Previously used wired devices took between 45 minutes and 8 hours (averaging just over 2.5 hours on average) to safely install depending on the machine complexity," Joshua Tompkins, IT Project Manager at Coates, revealed.

"We set an installation time target for this device of 15 minutes to complete. At present, we are averaging 10.4 minutes. At the scale at which Coates is deploying, that equates to a labour saving of over 12 man-years."

The specifications of the device include:

• Universal application capacity across a large and diverse fleet
• Sufficient battery life of up to three years'
• No ‘hard wiring' requirements to capture machine utilisation
• Ability to be installed by Coates branch staff in 15 minutes or less

Coates funded the engineering and production and to complete the planned telemetry retrofit, a total of 12,500 units will be manufactured and installed, across Coates' eligible diesel fleet by the end of the year.

Furthermore, to future-proof the technology, an additional pre-wired expansion port was built into the design. The port allows Coates to add sensors for an individual machine, without having to replace the device.

"Combined with Australian manufacturing and rapid installation, this feature gives customers access to a much more sustainable and cost-effective telemetry solution in years to come," Tompkins said.

Coates IoT journey will be discussed in depth at the Future of Mining Australia conference in Sydney, 28^th-29^th March. For more information visit www.australia.future-of-mining.com.