In April, Caterpillar, Thiess and WesTrac officials gathered at the Mt. Arthur South coal mine in New South Wales, Australia, to celebrate a major autonomous milestone three years in the making. Leading global mining services provider Thiess surpassed 1 million meters autonomously drilled using Cat MineStar technologies installed on a Cat MD6250 and two Cat MD6310 drills.
Currently with Thiess at its mining operations at Mt. Arthur South in NSW, the three fully autonomous drills are managed by a single operator sitting in a remote operating station (ROS) using Cat MineStar Command for drilling. However, the journey toward autonomous drilling at the mine didn’t happen overnight.
A multistep evolution toward automation saw the three companies implementing a building block approach beginning with the MD6250 drill. This required close collaboration between Thiess, WesTrac and Caterpillar, not only to implement technology but also to develop processes specific to autonomous operations, work through change management and develop new training programs for site personnel. These processes helped Thiess move from staffed to autonomous owning and operating procedures for the drills, including safe work procedures.
“Thiess’s commitment to this project and openness for deep collaboration has been a driving force behind its success,” commented Sean McGinnis, vice president and general manager of technology and global sales support for Cat MineStar Solutions. “We worked closely with Thiess and WesTrac to ensure our autonomous solution would meet their key performance indicator goals along the way.”
Thiess’s Head of Autonomy and Operations Technology, Trent Smith, added: “At Thiess, we are proud to be a leader in automation and autonomy for mining services. WesTrac did an outstanding job managing the project and providing onsite support to assist us with technology implementation, training and navigating the hurdles – including those posed by the global pandemic – encountered along the way.”
As the three companies worked together to evolve operations toward autonomous drilling, the results reported by Thiess were amazing.
- 20% improvement in drilling performance.
- More than 23 hours per day drill utilization.
- Zero redrilled holes using autonomous operation.
- Improvement in safety and reduction in fatigue by removing the operator away from the drill, noise, vibration and dust.
Caterpillar, www.cat.com