ABB has been recognized by APAC CIOOutlook Magazine as the recipient of “Top Metals & Mining Technology Solution Companies,” based on our proprietary methodology, reflecting its position in the industry. This profile has been developed by the APAC CIOOutlook research and editorial team based on insights from an interview with Ulrich Spiesshofer.

ABB
Advocate of Operational Efficiency

Ulrich Spiesshofer, President & CEO

Located in a remote area of northern Australia, a mining company has to deal with the harsh tropical savanna climate. These tough conditions call for a reliable control system performance. There is no surprise that to gain this capability, the client approached ABB—a company that is leading the way in digitally connecting and enabling industrial equipment and systems in the metal and mining industry. “Digital allows us to get to the next level of productivity improvement that will create wealth,” says Ulrich Spiesshofer, President and CEO, ABB. The client chose the ABB Harmony Distributed Control System to control their processes and requested ABB to provide them a diagnostic service to analyze ABB Harmony Distributed Control System that would indicate potential system issues, which require attention to minimize process disruptions and extend asset life. Thereby, the mining company utilized a Harmony Performance Fingerprint service to identify system issues that could cause hardware failure, resulting in an interruption in production. The ABB Harmony Performance Fingerprint helped the company to audit and analyze Harmony control systems to detect the issues that may impede performance. The Fingerprint solution is extensively useful in benchmarking control system performance and parameters, while compares them to peak operating conditions. Once the optimum system operation is identified, ABB recommends improvements to the company. As a result, the overall condition of the mining company’s system improved as the company now had customized and detailed action plan that defined controller issues and prioritized actions.

A Culture Of Integrity Is A Pre-Requisite For A World-Class Business

It also increased the customer’s confidence in the control system’s ability to keep production running.

Metal and mining industry is often subjected to basic automation and is limited to simple control of motors, equipment or certain parts of processes. These “islands of automation” produce their own data, formats and interfaces, and operators are required to scrutinize a multitude of conceptually disconnected screens to coordinate different parts of the process. This is entire procedure is tremendously tedious and prone to errors—declining the productivity. Amongst all this, ABB is uniquely positioned to bring together industrial enterprise software spanning process control, production management, operational planning and optimization, work and asset management, and back-office corporate functions— from the most remote locations to corporate headquarters.

Ensuring Efficiency

While dealing with mining mineral processing, ABB appoints its engineering expertise with years of knowledge and know-how of electrification and process control in mines. After understanding the needs of the mining companies, the team provides them with integrated products, services and solutions to help optimize their power and productivity, resulting in increased availability and lower lifetime investment costs. In case of open-pit operation, customers use ABB’s control and drive systems to save energy, improve productivity, and enhance system value. The company empowers them with electrification, automation, and control and drive systems for a full range of mining equipment, ranging from bucket-wheel and bucket-chain excavators to spreaders, stackers, reclaimers, crushers, shovels, draglines, belt conveyor systems, and stockpiles. Further, ABB’s experts develop a special drives control library for all mining equipment to enable customers to manage load-sharing of multi-drive applications, ensuring safe operation in all modes.

ABB is one of the best-known providers of complete mine hoists— both mechanical and electrical parts, of all types including friction, single and double drum mine hoists as well as shaft equipment. The company’s mine automation solutions are capable of integrating all process equipment and systems seamlessly with the same view either centrally or locally. With in-depth experience in electrical and automation areas, the company understands that firms’ requirement to manage their open-pit mining and material handling needs. Thereby, ABB walks hand in hand the customers from planning, installation, and commissioning to field-testing and service. Covering the entire production process, the company makes an entire range of solutions available for extraction, transport, and shipping, with an integrated control concept from a single source.

On the other hand, ABB’s unique offering help the metal industry to ensure safe, reliable and efficient operations, with the team’s continuous effort to bring an innovative solution on the clients’ table to help the industry level up. The company’s Electromagnetic Stirring Solutions (EMS) deliver metallurgical improvements to help companies increase productivity, end-product quality, and reduce operating costs—for electric arc furnace and ladle furnace operation, thick and thin slab casting, as well as aluminium furnaces. The company offers the world's most comprehensive range of EMS for both steel and aluminium. To answer the growing demands of the industry to increase productivity product quality, ABB comes up with a fully integrated technology that helps achieve flexible operations, total process supervision, comprehensive reporting and operator guidance.

Functioning in the metal and mining industry for more than four decades at the forefront of digital technologies, ABB is a pioneer in digitally connected and enabled industrial equipment and systems with an installed base of more than 70,000 control systems connecting 70 million devices. “A culture of integrity is a pre-requisite for a world-class business,” concludes Spiesshofer.

- Akanksha Minz
November 28, 2017