SIC in Mine Operation Planning is the backbone of efficient Mining. Maintaining the mine operation with regards to long term mine plan is key for successful operation and it is equally challenging. Deviation between mine plan and actual operation is a real-life problem due to multiple operational bottlenecks. Mining companies’ losses significant amount of revenues due to unplanned and reworked operation. Monitoring and controlling the deviation at shift operation level reduces overall deviation in the long-term plan. Mine digitization with real time data driven decision optimize the process and control deviation at operation level.
Evaluating and optimizing overall shift performance at the end of shift or even after 4-hour intervals is too long a period. Application of Short Interval Control (SIC) helps to quickly detect, track, and respond in real-time to any change in performance. Each shift is split into short intervals of time generally one or two hours within which workforce use high-quality data available to identify and implement continuous improvement. Ideally, any problem is not allowed to continue for an extended period. During a shift, supervisors can identify issues that may affect production and take immediate informed action to rectify those problems.
Core principle of SIC
The underlying core principle of SIC is learning quickly from the immediate past to improve the immediate and long-term future. SIC is implemented as a series of short (five to ten minutes) review meetings. Objective of meeting is to rapidly identify and react to emerging problems which could adversely affect production and to use data to determine improvement opportunities for the next shift. The process aims to reduce burden on supervisors by giving them a better picture of what is going through, where everything is within the mine which helps in comparing with what they’ve planned to do in planning group in the office. This results in eliminated challenges of underutilized equipment and wasted capital.
Four parts of meeting techniques are:
- Identify and review losses in previous interval
- Assess effectiveness of all previous actions
- Identify next risks that may impact performance
- Decide specific set of actions for next interval
Main benefits of SIC
- Offers instant awareness of situations to monitor progress of multiple tasks
- Provides real-time visibility over resource availability and deviations
- Determines daily potential of the mine complying with the mine plan
- Gives knowledge of priorities to enable front-line decision making in the occurrence of unexpected issues during mine site operations
- More effectively measures significant improvements in efficiency based on feedback loop
- Achieves operational excellence and improves overall asset utilization
- Monitors compliance to long-term objectives and track variations to establish a business case for change wherever required
- Supports strategies, realistic goals to maximize production output and lowers operating costs
Short Interval Control for Efficient Mining
Implementation of SIC in mining involves activities to detect and prevent deviations in real-time processes (production, development, and services). It assists the mining crew in observing periodically how the process is being performed against a plan throughout a shift on the areas requiring investigation. Planners, operational controllers, and management personnel can create significant impact on existing production at a much faster rate. They can handle operations smoothly according to the shift goals by forecasting possible risks over short time spans.
Modern technology driven SIC ensures that miners get intra-shift related data much quicker. Accuracy and validity of collected data provide the opportunity to address delays during the shift itself. Enabling faster response and better control over the entire process, corrective actions can be taken within the shift rather than waiting for end of shift lengthy reports to estimate the performance. Thus, adopting SIC methodology creates the business better equipped to make more proactive decisions generating speedy improvements to mine productivity with a safer working environment.
GroundHog SIC: From Paper Based to Digital Mining
Mining companies have shifted from traditional methods of paper-based data collection to recording timely data on digital devices such as smartphones and tablets. Mobile apps allow the capturing and reporting of this info seamlessly. Mobile-based data collection eliminates the possibility of manual errors that creep in with paper forms and enables quick operational assessment from the command center. GroundHog Digital SIC controls mining production, tracks and schedules workforce, and helps to get deeper insights to drive higher operating efficiency.
With the help of several intelligent SIC features, any shift can be analyzed including skipped tonnage, production material movement, filled tonnage, bolting summary, equipment statistics, etc. Target value, planned value, and actual value of different categories like Ore, Stockpile, Loaded, etc. can also be compared. Moreover, production at any location within mine can be tracked.
- Create shift plan – Easily create weekly, daily shift plans to meet advance rates and tons.
- Streamline allocation – Streamline equipment and miner allocation to meet shift plans.
- Greedy-auto assign – Shift manager can auto-assign to operators and available equipment with just one press of a button.
- Digital line ups – Digital line-ups on TVs and supervisor apps shorten time to first-task-start.
- Real-time monitoring – Monitor production in real time and mitigate impacts.
Leverage the benefits of SIC to improve your operation performance, monitor, and control deviation between plan and actual. Contact us to schedule a demo and initiate a pilot for safe and productive operation.
Using Short Interval Control To Enhance Mining Operations
How GroundHog SIC Helps Miners Meet Daily Production Targets
