| Subscribe to the From the Editor RSS feed | To increase reliability and avoid catastrophic failure, the asset health data is integrated with various systems, including SAP, RCM, EDW, and Matrikon’s ProcessMORe. “In 2007, we began building a process methodology. We brought in a multi-discipline team of experts and defined everything,” explained Walker. “A pilot was conducted at three North American mine sites. We can do site-to-site monitoring.”
Like most organizations, FCX’s maintenance personnel and operators were at odds with one another. “Maintenance people will tell you for 200 years that operators tear up your equipment,” said Walker. “In 2008, we realized quickly from our pilot that we needed a robust application. We partnered with what was Matrikon and began development of mobile equipment monitoring (MEM) and built a successful collaboration model between our maintenance organization, MIS, mine sites, and Matrikon.”
The prototype MEM product was implemented at two North American sites on Caterpillar 793 hauling trucks, P&H 4100 and 2800 electric shovels, and Caterpillar support equipment. “We standardized a decision-making process, alarm-handling process, and data analysis process,” explained Walker. “We want remote-asset-monitoring-process (RAMP) personnel to focus on business results, such as sustaining higher equipment reliability and availability. We want to collect and analyze real-time data, use various predictive technologies and advanced diagnostic tools, and make recommendations to maintenance and operations divisions.”
The data has brought operations and maintenance together. “Now we have people looking at data they've never seen before,” she said. “It was important to build a positive operations and maintenance communications tool. Somebody's looking at data that tells the health of the equipment. We had to build the communications, and this was an important piece of the success.”
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