Visions for challenging assets in the South African coal sector
Z van Zyl
The southern African coal industry is facing the reality that coal reserves
are becoming deeper and harder to mine than before. Alternative visions
need to be considered to offset the impact of these challenges on productivity,
cost, and profitability. One of the main challenges is to maintain
current production levels under more difficult conditions, and improve
productivity where conditions allow. There is a need to move from the
reactive event-based management system towards the more adaptable and
flexible process-based management system. This paper focuses on
underground coal mining, but the principles are also applicable to other
commodities and mining methods. This paper is based on research
undertaken by the personnel from Mining Consultancy Services Pty Ltd
(MCS) on trends in the underground coal mining sector, as well as
practical experience over a period of 16 years in the field of electronic
monitoring of mining machinery and productivity optimization.
Keywords: productivity, optimization, Prodmate, reporting, handheld device,
monitoring, improvement, utilization, key performance indicators, coal
mining.