UWA ERDi i4.0 TestLab – AVEVA Joins TestLab Collaborative Efforts
Co-founders of The University of Western Australia’s (UWA) Energy & Resources Digital Interoperability Industry 4.0 (ERDi i4.0) Testlab Enterprise Transformation Partners (ETP), along with UWA, are pleased to announce that they have agreed terms with global mining software giant AVEVA, with respect to collaboration on Proof of Concept 1 (POC1) of the AMIRA P1208 Project.
Related Article: ERDI TestLab Kicks Off First Major Industry Sponsored Project - AMIRA P1208
The AVEVA™ Production Management (formerly Ampla) suite is widely used across mining today and will be familiar to many. Recently, the AVEVA team has been working with Gold Fields Australia’s Granny Smith Mine team and ERDi TestLab founders ETP in enhancing the AVEVA Production Management inventory management software to support the latest version of i4.0 automation standards ISA-95 and B2MML v7.0.
A contingent from Gold Fields Australia and Granny Smith Mine Executives and Teams visited the ERDi Test Lab recently for a demonstration of the progress made thus far in enhancing software to support B2MML v7.0.
The major focus was to demonstrate that software packages from various vendors that supported differing mining functions (i.e. mine scheduling vs fleet management vs. materials/inventory tracking) could be configured with a common set of master data for the Granny Smith Mine via the ISA-95/B2MML v7.0 standard.
One may ask why this is required?
Anyone that works in the areas of geology, developing mine plans, schedules or mine management understands the effort needed to rectify the many issues caused by misaligned data between various systems they use.
Today this is predominantly experienced when trying to produce reports which require data from multiple source systems. Whether your solution is manual or automated to some extent, the alignment of data after the fact is a compensation by design and is imperfect in outcome.
As such, there is a cost to bear in terms of additional effort or upkeep/maintenance of an automated solution and unfortunately the end result is data that is often difficult to trust.
In a world in which all mining systems are exchanging information electronically in an effort to streamline and automate work across processes there can be no misalignment of master data i.e. your equipment, process, location, materials, and personnel data.
As such, an engineered solution is required whereby master data used by our various mining software applications can be aligned and stay aligned over time as master data updates are required.
The ISA-95 standard provides a framework in which all the value chain master data of a given operation can be defined and then shared with other systems via a standard message.
This means that rather than the users of each system configuring their own system locally (where master data misalignment often begins), the master data can be defined centrally and then sent to each system.
By doing this and locking down/controlling local system configuration access, there is now an engineered solution for designing, updating and managing master data.
This is step one in moving away from cadence-based information exchanges and operating models to event based automated information exchange and even triggered operating models, but also solves the issue of misaligned data feeding enterprise data warehouses for reporting, analytics and dashboards.
Through their work with Gold Fields Australia, AVEVA has enhanced their solution to receive schedules, receive actuals and publish material balances via ISA-95/B2MML v7.0 standard messages in real-time thus providing live visibility of operations with context to plan, enabling improved deviation management and reduction of lost opportunities.
Through the collaboration with the ERDi Testlab, AVEVA will now also have the opportunity to showcase and demonstrate their software interoperating with other technologies from other partners to a wider audience of Gold Fields, South32 and FMG mines.
This opportunity will be expanded to other mining companies outside of the AMIRA P1208 sponsoring group in 2021.
“The UWA ERDi i4.0 TestLab is excited to have AVEVA on board as a member and active in the AMIRA P1208 project. Our mining customers are excited to have AVEVA on-board and participating in the P1208 proofs of concept” said ETP Managing Director John Kirkman.
“I believe that as the mining industry learns of these modern engineered solutions to common industry problems, technology suppliers like AVEVA, along with other standards supporting vendors, will offer a point of difference and benefit way beyond what can be achieved alone by each software component individually.” Kirkman added.
”We’re proud to be working with UWA and the TestLab to help drive the future of mining in Australia. As an industry, it’s incumbent upon us all, vendors and miners, to maximise value and scarce resources to fulfil the needs of humanity, sustainably. Being involved in the TestLab helps all prove the efficacy of this approach and the need for standards,” said Damien McDade, VP of AVEVA Pacific.
ABOUT UWA ERDi i4.0 TestLab
The University of Western Australia’s Energy & Resources Digital Interoperability Industry 4.0 TestLab has been established to work with industry to develop new technologies as part of the fourth industrial revolution (known as Industry 4.0).
Industry 4.0 Testlabs are a strategic initiative of the Prime Minister’s Industry 4.0 Taskforce, which was formed in 2016 with the support of the Australian Government. The Taskforce is also working in close collaboration with the German Labs Network Industrie 4.0, the key organisation driving the development and deployment of Industry 4.0 Testbeds in Germany.
I4.0 aligned architecture and technology components will deliver the next step change in operational performance for the Energy and Resources sectors. I4.0 interoperability standards are critical in unlocking this value. The ERDi Testlab is a state-of-the-art facility that will enable the rapid realisation of these benefits through research, development, trials, testing and education.
About The University of Western Australia (UWA)
The University of Western Australia is a public research university in the Australian state of Western Australia. The university's main campus is in Perth, the state capital, with a secondary campus in Albany and various other facilities elsewhere.
UWA was established in 1911 by an act of the Parliament of Western Australia and began teaching students two years later.[2] It is the sixth-oldest university in Australia and was Western Australia's only university until the establishment of Murdoch University in 1973. Because of its age and reputation, UWA is classed one of the "sandstone universities", an informal designation given to the oldest university in each state. The university also belongs to several more formal groupings, including the Group of Eight and the Matariki Network of Universities.
About Enterprise Transformation Partners (ETP)
ETP is a niche consultancy focused on assisting mining and oil & gas companies achieve high performance operations through the automation of processes, systems and information flows. ETP provides advisory, strategic, enterprise architecture and systems integration services.
ETP believe that standards-based interoperability is the key enabler to unlocking significant value and realising an I4.0 operating paradigm. As such, ETP invests heavily in the advancement of operations management (ISA-95) and process control standards (OPAF) with the goal of ensuring that the needs of the resources sector are catered for.
With rare and highly specialised expertise in advanced operations management concepts, ETP focus on lowering the operating costs of any company with a physical goods value chain, especially those within the mining, oil & gas and batch manufacturing industries.
About AVEVA
Listed on the London stock exchange, AVEVA services more than 16,000 companies worldwide with over 4,400 employees across 40+ countries. Mining giants BHP, Rio Tinto and Glencore form part of its expansive client portfolio in the ANZ region. AVEVA delivers end-to-end value chain optimisation software, helping organisations redefine processes to enable deeper collaboration, reduce value leaks, sustain productivity and innovation, and ultimately make better and more robust decisions quicker across the operations lifecycle.
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If you would like more information about this topic, please call John Kirkman on +61 415 188 046 or email john.kirkman@erditestlab.com