Aus$11m contract for Citect and Calibre Controls

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IBG - SA Instrumentation & Control Buyers' Guide

December 2005 News

Citect and Calibre Controls have been selected by Rio Tinto, in Sydney, Australia, to provide MES software, project management and services for its AU$11m mine utilisation improvement project in Pilbara Iron's Paraburdoo mine. The project objective is to restore the mine's throughput to the design capacity, that is 22 million tonnes per year. Phase 1 is due for completion this month.

"The Ampla MES technology allows our plant management access to a single reporting dashboard from which they can visualise and act on plant and operational performance data. This helps us to measure how effective our assets are, to benchmark those assets against rated performance, and to identify areas for business improvement," said Mike Westerman, Mine Operations Manager, Paraburdoo, Pilbara Iron, Rio Tinto.

Accounting for AU$1m of the project, Ampla software will be used to replace the mine's existing plant downtime and production monitoring system. Calibre will install the Ampla Performance suite consisting of Downtime, Production and Metrics modules, to provide accurate, reliable, realtime intelligence on operational performance, production and lost time in a rich consolidated format to key personnel throughout the plant. This is the first Ampla order Calibre Controls has received since becoming the first Gold Citect Integration Partner to complete training for Ampla in August.

"From our experience, there are many mining operations that can experience significant production gains and business efficiency improvements, from implementing technologies like Ampla," said Steve Hannah, general manager of Calibre Controls. "In working closely with our clients, we are able to demonstrate to them these expected improvements and their return on investment."

Ampla has been proven at a number of blue chip sites around the world and has helped mining companies like BHP Billiton, Western Mining Corporation (WMC) Resources, De Beers and Impala Platinum to increase throughput and achieve ROI within a matter of a few months. For example, WMC Resources reported ROI within days, achieving 24% performance improvement equivalent to AU$250K per day, in its underground railway haulage at Olympic Dam.

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Aus$11m contract for Citect and Calibre Controls

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