As a leading manufacturer and supplier of high-performance minerals-processing equipment, Aury Africa’s clients include major mining companies such as Anglo American, Exxaro, Vale, and Canyon Coal. With 100 employees across South Africa, Johannesburg-based Aury Africa looks after numerous sites at any given time.
Accounting for mining equipment in the field and safety inspections can be a problem when data is recorded manually. During regulatory inspections, for instance, there is a need to track the maintenance process, ensuring that the work carried out conforms to the technical and safety requirements necessary to complete the work to a sufficiently high standard.
In addition, the remote mining operation environments where the equipment is used create additional challenges when it comes to managing sophisticated assets such as high-frequency screens, feeders and centrifuges, etc.
In 2017, Aury Africa decided to turn this challenge into an opportunity: How could it identify equipment operating at mining sites and improve flow-process inspection and maintenance? How could it deliver operational excellence to clients?
“In the mining and minerals-processing sector, RFID technology is ideal for inspecting plant equipment, mining machines, pumps, valves, and pipes,” said Aury Africa Director Sydney Parkhouse.
The company enlisted the help of Thembekile Asset Management Solutions (TAMS), a specialist in integrating RFID technology with software for the mining, oil and gas, manufacturing, and healthcare sectors, in initiating a project to develop RFID technology specific to the requirements of the mining industry.
“TAMS is assisting Aury Africa to achieve its IoT vision of digitizing its operational processes. Our capability of integrating RFID technology into applicable solutions complements Aury Africa’s desire to revolutionize existing operations,” said Dean Parkhouse, Business Development Director of TAMS.
In the search for which RFID technology to utilize, factors such as the high operating temperatures and pressures had to be considered. Ultimately, Xerafy’s Roswell UHF RFID tags were selected due to their IoT knowledge and ability to produce RFID tags that withstand harsh conditions.
“Tag selection is imperative,” Parkhouse said. “Considering the environment and working conditions the tag would have to endure, the mounting options available to us, and the surfaces we would need to work with, the Xerafy Roswell ticked all the boxes.”
Xerafy’s Roswell offers several attachment options suited to mining equipment, enabling real-time tracking and asset-management applications.
The new solution has improved planned inspection reporting, made data access more consistent, and improved the data’s accuracy. Workflow inspections are more transparent, and real-time reporting is now possible with the widespread implementation of RFID technology.
With TAMS and Xerafy, Aury Africa can take its next step in its IoT vision: Using the solution as a self-learning system for its employees. Given that Aury Africa prioritizes operational excellence, the incorporation of Xerafy’s Roswell has assisted Aury Africa in restructuring its workflow inspections and establishing proper asset-management systems to guide asset tracking and identification.
Xerafy is a pioneer in Industrial RFID, bringing to market several innovations that enable advanced industrial identification and automation capabilities.
In addition to a complete range of field-proven RFID tags available off-the-shelf, Xerafy offers Custom RFID Tags services, covering everything from a personalization service bureau to custom-design engineering capabilities.
About Aury Africa –
Aury Africa’s goal is to provide the best innovative screening and vibrating equipment solutions and services to the African mining market. Aury Africa takes advantage of the economies of scale provided by large-scale Chinese production from its ISO-9001 accredited sister company, Aury (Tianjin), with the aid and assistance of technical know-how developed in Australia and South Africa. Aury also has a sound research and design capability, backed by the technical expertise of several engineers who boast extensive experience in vibration technology within the mining sector. Aury design engineers think outside the box to provide traditional vibrating technology with leading-edge thinking and design techniques to produce innovative capital equipment superior to anything on the market today.
About TAMS –
Thembekile Asset Management Solutions is an RFID system integrator, providing customized Enterprise Mobility solutions utilizing the latest RFID and RTLS technologies to enhance the delivery of business intelligence. TAMS has combined the latest RFID and RTLS with cutting-edge software to enable hospitals and care facilities to remotely collect data and generate real-time reporting via fixed and mobile devices.
