Schneider Electric Powers Roy Hill’s Remote Operations Center to Drive Digital Strategy

Author photo: Craig Resnick
ByCraig Resnick
Category:
Project Success Story

Schneider Electric announced the results achieved at Roy Hill, an independent iron ore operation in Western Australia. Roy Hill implemented a Schneider Electric mining industry software solution to consolidate end-to-end operational visibility and optimize their mining value chain. The goal was to empower Roy Hill's operations to monitor and control the full mining value chain, from the mine to the port, from a remote location, as well as to implement a solution that automates and streamlines demand chain planning, inventory tracking, quality management and capacity simulation.

Roy Hill built a greenfield iron ore mine and mine process plant in the Pilbara region, a heavy haul railway system from mine-to-port, new port facilities in Port Hedland, and a Remote Operations Center (ROC) in Perth. Each of these infrastructure components were designed to meet its capacity of 55 million tonnes per annum (Mtpa) of iron ore.

As a ground up development, Roy Hill had the ability to recruit their own people, establish their own culture, and define their own operating model with a focus on their own vision. The goal was to build an organization free of most of the bureaucracy where efficiency is more readily possible through streamlined processes that can drive high performance, fit for purpose outcomes.

Many leading mining companies have historically evolved with organizational silos, usually between mines, processing facilities and logistics. In the age of increasing automation, data, and digitalization, these silos can often prevent end-to-end visibility and optimization opportunities to realize resource to market potential. Roy Hill was determined to try to avoid these pitfalls with the help of its ecosystem partners, including Schneider Electric.

Schneider Electric was selected as a vendor for its mining industry offerings, industry experience and consultative approach. Mine and port operations include Schneider Electric’s electrical switchgear and distribution, variable frequency drives, critical power systems (UPS) and power monitoring systems. In addition, Roy Hill implemented Schneider Electric’s industrial software offering designed for the mining industry, which included Demand Chain Planning and Scheduling (DCPS), Inventory Tracking and Quality Management (ITQM), Delay Accounting (DA), and Capacity Simulation Model (Pre-CAPEX Analysis).

The DCPS solution allows for further optimization of Roy Hill’s end-to-end demand chain from the pit to the port across different time horizons, from long term planning to weekly scheduling. This visibility is then linked into real-time inventory and quality information through its ITQM solution to close the loop between actuals and the schedule (conformance to schedule), and between actuals and the plan (conformance to plan).

DA provides financial insights into production slowdowns and outages, which enables Roy Hill to see these results on a shift by shift basis. Roy Hill is using this digital process to help drive better decisions on a timely basis.

All of these processes and technologies are brought together in Roy Hill’s ROC in Perth, where all aspects of Roy Hill’s operations, from real-time execution to scheduling to planning, from the mine to the processing plant, to rail and port are being monitored and controlled at a location that is 1,300 km away from the mine site. With all expertise in the same location, Roy Hill can help to improve opportunities to collaborate, de-risk decisions and place greater focus on business improvements, with a view of their entire business.

Schneider Electric has worked closely with Roy Hill to help drive their digital transformation and innovation strategies within the mining industry.

More information can be found here about Schneider Electric’s mining solutions.

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