Production Data Capture

Optimise your operations planning across processes, teams, departments with smart control over resources.

Introduction

Production data capture is a crucial component in the mining and metals industry. With declining ore reserves and grades putting pressure on productivity, the need to collect, analyse, and utilise production data effectively has never been more critical. processes, reduce costs, and ensure sustainability. This article delves into the importance of production data capture, its benefits, the technologies involved, and the challenges faced by the mining and metals sector.

Importance of Production Data Capture

Operational Efficiency

Mining teams capture data from various stages of the production process, from ore extraction to metal refining, enabling them to streamline operations, reduce bottlenecks, and minimise downtime. Commit Works products cover both mobile fleet and fixed plant activities, underground and on the surface.

Improved Decision-Making

Real-time data provides management with crucial insights into production trends, equipment performance, and labour productivity. This data-driven approach facilitates quicker and more informed decision-making. Traditionally, Teams managed equipment plans and activities separately from personnel plans and activities. Commit Works products now track all production plans and results, offering a unified view that combines equipment and personnel perspectives in one platform.

Cost Optimisation

Teams capture data to track operational costs, including activity consumables, labour, and equipment maintenance, in real time. This enables them to identify areas for cost savings, prevent resource waste, and optimise budgets. Commit Works plans and schedules provide a comprehensive view across various workstreams and processes, including production, equipment utilisation, labour hours, and activity consumables. Enhanced visibility into critical paths and process inefficiencies empowers teams to identify significant saving opportunities and drive operational improvements.

Regulatory Compliance and Sustainability

Operations teams capture data to ensure compliance with environmental regulations. By monitoring emissions, waste production, and consumables use, companies meet sustainability goals and avoid penalties. The full visibility of whole-of-operations work plans and execution progress that Commit Works offers supports compliance, both regulatory and safety. Commit Works CiteOps solution validates work plans against compliance requirements and maintains a fully auditable revision history.

Key Data Points in Mining & Metals Production

Material Flow Data

Teams track the movement and volume of raw materials, such as ore, concentrates, or refined metals, throughout the production process. This data optimises extraction rates and production scheduling. Commit Works solutions monitor primary and secondary mining activities in mobile fleet or fixed plant contexts both underground and on the surface.

Equipment Performance Data

Maintenance teams collect data on the performance, and maintenance of heavy machinery and equipment, such as crushers, haul trucks, and conveyor belts. This monitoring helps prevent unplanned downtime through predictive maintenance. Our system operates in desktop browsers in offices and control rooms, as well as on mobile phones and tablets, providing detailed checklists and inspection capabilities for capturing equipment and workplace information.

Labor Productivity Data

Supervisors monitor workforce productivity, and task completion times, to ensure optimal deployment of human resources. CiteOps stands as the only Integrated Work Management (IWM) solution that fully combines the labour roster/availability calendars with detailed work plans for operations. The system tracks all work to labour, creating complete timelines of activities for operations teams.

Consumption Data

Operations teams capture data on activity consumables to optimise resource use and reduce environmental impact. Through configurable forms and checklists, CiteOps and Commit Works CiteVis can track all activity consumables utilised against each work task.

Technologies Enabling Data Capture in Mining & Metals

Cloud Computing and Big Data Analytics

Mining companies leverage cloud platforms for storing and analysing large volumes of production data. Advanced analytics and AI-driven tools derive insights from this data, enabling better decision-making, predictive maintenance, and operational optimisation. Commit Works delivers fully hosted solutions with cloud-native capabilities. The CiteOps database utilises a big-data, NoSQL database cluster with real-time replication to the CiteVis cloud SQL data analytics database. CiteOps software provides both planning capabilities and actual production data capture so that production schedules can be refined, realigned, and improved based on actual operations progress and feedback. CiteVis software provides real-time operations reporting capabilities so that all KPIs can be reported and visualised in various ways.

Automation and Control Systems

Operations teams deploy SCADA and Distributed Control Systems (DCS) to monitor and control production processes. These systems continuously capture data from multiple machines and equipment, providing a holistic view of production operations. CiteOps can be integrated with data collection systems such as SCADA for fixed plant equipment information.

Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT)

IoT sensors installed on machinery, vehicles, and other equipment capture real-time operational data, including vibrations, temperature, pressure, and performance metrics. Teams analyse this data to prevent equipment failures and optimise asset performance. CiteOps can be integrated with other data collection systems such as Fleet Management Systems (FMS) for mobile equipment information.

Edge Computing

Teams process data close to the source through edge computing, reducing latency and enabling real-time analytics. This supports immediate decision-making in remote and rugged environments. CiteOps mobile application provides offline/on-device solutions for data delivery, acquisition, and calculation.

Benefits of Effective Production Data Capture

Enhanced Production Planning

By capturing and analysing data in real-time, companies can improve production planning, adjust output to match demand and mitigate supply chain disruptions.

Predictive Maintenance

Equipment performance data drives maintenance strategies that reduce downtime and associated costs.

Optimised Resource Allocation

Real-time insights enable efficient distribution of labour, machinery, and materials throughout the production process.

Challenges in Data Capture

Data Integration

CiteOps addresses integration challenges through its comprehensive RESTful API, enabling unified operational visibility across systems.

Connectivity in Remote Locations

Commit Works solutions operate from global data centres, with browser-based applications designed for varying connection capacities and offline functionality.

Data Security

As an ISO27001 certified solution, Commit Works maintains robust security standards for operational data protection.

Initial Investment Costs

The cloud-provisioned approach minimises capital investment while delivering long-term efficiency gains and cost savings.

Final Thoughts

Production data capture continues to transform the mining and metals industry by enabling companies to improve efficiency, reduce costs, and adopt sustainable practices. The ability to collect, and act on real-time production data provides a significant competitive advantage. However, companies must address challenges such as data integration, connectivity, and security to fully realise the benefits of data-driven operations. As the industry evolves, the importance of robust data capture systems will only grow, driving innovation and success in the mining and metals sector.