Case Study – Colowyo Coal Co

Craig, Colorado USA

Background

Colowyo Coal Co produces over two million tons of low sulphur, subbituminous coal annually. The operation uses both draglines and truck and shovel operations for removing the overburden and extracting the coal. The coal is extracted, crushed, and transported to an on-site railhead, where it is shipped by train to the Tri-State Craig Power Station.

Caterpillar Fleet, Health, and Terrain systems are used on the mining fleet and equipment includes a dragline, face shovels, 12 240-ton haul trucks, and 9 bulldozers along with road haul units.

Project Owners:

Matthew Huff – MineStar Coordinator
Daniel Dunning – MineStar Technical Analyst

Issues

Daily reporting needs takes a considerable effort to collect data from multiple source systems then compile and produce daily reports
End of month reporting needs takes considerable time and effort to collect data from multiple systems to compile, reconcile, and produce end of month reports, which then delayed distribution timelines
Too much reliance on multiple data stores and legacy reporting systems

Project Objectives

Project Objectives:

The primary objective was to consolidate data collection and storage between the three onboard systems and other data sources currently used between the mine and rail load-out point.

Improve reporting timeliness
Improve ability to trend data
Improve accuracy of month-end reporting
Improve data integrity, reconciliation, and validation

Process

Following a market appraisal of suitable products, the Connected Solutions suite from Information Alignment was chosen for implementation over two stages.

They have a proven track record of integration of data sources, particularly old CAT Oracle instances. The ability to perform material tracking at a high level of accuracy and the inclusion of spatially enhanced products were also determining factors in the selection process.

Stage 1 consisted of the primary application modules designed to focus on the data collection, validation, and reporting of key data in load/haul, drill/blast, budgets/plans, and health areas.

Stage 2 focused on the material tracking and stockpile aspects along with reconciliation processes. Additional custom work on environmental reporting obligations and the inclusion of full and active spatial views of the operation was also in this stage.

Benefits/Observations

Overall, the outcomes and benefits derived from the project included:

Reduction of time/effort in daily reporting and stockpile balancing, thus providing timely scheduled reports.
Improvement in end-of-period reconciliation of volumes and tonnages with quality reliable data.
Ability to view the entire operation in spatial views including relevant data and real-time locations.
Custom requirements were included where possible in a reasonable timeframe and designed as required.
Product(s) were deployed/installed in a realistic timeframe including custom data capture needs.
Reduced the need to access multiple systems and have it all compiled in one location for viewing among future custom report/dashboard designs.

Testimonials

Mr. Matt Huff – Minestar Coordinator – CCC Operations

At the completion of the project Mr. Huff provided the following comments:

“We had planned and began to execute the implementation of Connected Mine when COVID-19 was introduced. We had some difficulties due to the lockdowns in both the United States and Australia and the inability of the Information Alignment engineers to come onsite for the implementation. We were able to work through this with a concerted effort to implement the system through remote channels.

We have been very impressed with the support team, most of whom are in Australia, to resolve our issues in a very timely manner.

The Connected Mine program has allowed us to use data that we were unable to utilise in the past and has quickly become a business-critical application”

Mr. Daniel Dunning – MineStar Technical Analyst – CCC Operations

Mr. Dunning was the key end-user responsible for deployment and ongoing content delivery and said:

“Although the difference in time zones was difficult, we have had constant support and timely fixes to our service needs. Information Alignment parties provided training on request during each phase of the project.

The Tools provided made it easy to design dashboards for the inexperienced users along with training provided where knowledge would lack on customers areas.

When requests for quotes were asked Connected Mine personnel always did research to make sure they provided the desired outcome.”