TAdviser Interview: Vadim Pestun, the Chief information officer of SUEK, about a role of information technologies in coal production

Vadim Pestun: Yes, there is such record - 100 million tons of coal were extracted last year. In order that to extract these 100 million tons, well debugged chain of actions in which many mechanisms, machines and employees participate is required. IT are "glue", allowing this chain to exist and effectively to work. The IT provides information flows: provides necessary data in the necessary timepoints and promotes acceptance of the correct management and engineering decisions.

Vadim Pestun: You are surprised, but coal is a perishable product. If you extracted brown coal and store in big heaps (is called – a stack), it begins to burn because of oxidation processes if in small - it begins to be crushed and blurred by water. Practically never mixing of different sorts of coal in one stack is allowed. Therefore – space always in deficit. The output – coal needs to be exported and implemented quickly. A normal method of implementation – to load the vessel in port.

Let's take for an example our northern port in Murmansk. There on loading of coal old cranes with ladles scoops are used. But at the same time automatic equipment works. It provides uniform filling of the vessel with coal, prompts to the operator how to create correct coal "cocktail" - from what stacks storing coal of different sorts, how many ladles to take.

As a new example of IT, I will mention our plans for ecological dispatching offices which are established in ports and will allow to monitor strictly dust content, noise and other parameters, coordinating a shipment rhythm to meteoconditions, inflows and otliva, to coordinate logistics of railway transport.

Vadim Pestun: Did you hear about a task about an optimal diet? During World War I Germans had a problem: how to feed army for the minimum money that at the same time soldiers received necessary amount of proteins, fats and carbohydrates. While each product has the cost and the set of nutrients.

The task was solved by methods of linear programming and then was actively used in state planning. The same task costs also at us. "Cocktails" or mixes can be made of different sorts of coal and are tied to parameters of power plants. How to build required mix that its cost value was minimum, marginality maximum and at the same time it corresponded on the caloric content, ash-content, etc. to requirements of the customer? We answer this question, solving problems of optimal planning, coordinating sales plans to opportunities of production and restrictions of logistics.

Vadim Pestun: In Vanino port more modern equipment for loading is used. There are machines which are big rotor wheels and conveyors (stakery-reklaymer or stackers – zaborshchik) which scoop a certain quantity of ladles of coal from a stack and send them on pipeline further. There are conveyors which lift this coal to bulk machines which are several meeting pipelines pouring coal in the vessel bunker. Here a set of small problems which are solved by IT: how many and where to take coal as to pour it how to clean from metal impurities.

Automatic equipment monitors a status of coal stacks. That coal did not raise dust when wind blows, it needs to be frozen. Fully automatic systems, "snow" guns – similar to those which create snow on alpine skiing slopes are engaged in it. Depending on wind and temperature, such gun is guided in the necessary direction and waters a stack with a sleet.

One more important task solved using electronics, detection of the metal garbage which got to coal. There are special sensors and management systems which analyze the coal which is quickly moving on the pipeline on availability of metal. At detection the point where approximately there can be this metal, with an accuracy of several meters is fixed. And at the right time, when the suspicious piece passes through a certain section of a pipeline cycle, there is a shift - all coal on this section gets to the second line. There availability of metal is detected to within a half a meter, but already at smaller speeds, and further metal is extracted by a manual method. Here to you the whole complex connected with loading. Do you see how many there automatic equipment?

Vadim Pestun: Solutions of the MES level, the dispatching systems are used. To the operator of the crane or staker-reklaymer information comes to the special display - the picture showing arrangement of stacks of coal and an order: from where and how many tons it is necessary to take.

Vadim Pestun: Now our employees solve a problem of control of fullness of ladles. How to count useful weight with a necessary accuracy? How to consider the errors arising from the movement of a ladle? Different options are considered. Also we want to know precisely how many and what movements executed the crane to understand how many the electric power was spent for loading what share was useful. Further to determine the crane operator's performance, quality of its work by these parameters.

Vadim Pestun: I will begin with loading process. It is necessary to know precisely how many coal is filled up in the car. Scanning of process of a charge and automatic control of car feed speed under the feeder is for this purpose made. To the car the rope on which force of a tension the mass of coal is measured clings. There are also sensors monitoring coal charge level. This process is optimized so that to place the maximum number of calories for the minimum money in the car.

Management of transportations is extremely difficult task. SUEK extracts coal in the center of the country – Kuzbass, the central regions of Siberia. And carries it in two opposite points - Vanino port in the Far East and the Murmansk port. About 60% of business of SUEK, are long-term contracts, on them we foreknow that where to carry. Other 40% are spot high-marginal contracts, but they have a low predictability.

So on the one hand, there is a certain steady flow of cars which moves back and forth, and with another – there is a need all the time to satisfy requirements of unpredictable spots. How to make it? To optimize routes and to understand how many cars should be ordered from an external cargo companies, we use systems-optimayzery. In particular, there is the Russian company "Reasonable Solutions" which developed an algorithm based on the mathematical principles of agentny modeling. We can look for with high degree of reliability optimum in terms of quantity and location of cars in real time. We know a status of the carriage park over the country, we understand vectors of their movement and we know the requirements connected with spot market.

Vadim Pestun: Yes, we establish cooperation with such companies. I hope that in the nearest future we will put our new Optimizer into trial operation. Really, the more quickly we obtain information, say, from the Russian Railway, the more we save on costs. And logistics cost in ton of coal is more than 50%.

Vadim Pestun: Let's take open mining operations. Excavators work at electricity, rates for which depend on time of day. It is important to us to keep electricity metering, coordinating working shifts with hours when we can receive the most profitable electricity rate.

Further, it is necessary to fill coal in dump trucks and to bring to intermediate warehouses. It is ideal when there is no idle time, and machines uninterruptedly come one by one to the excavator. But it cannot be made, without knowing geopositioning of machines. We in the online mode should be engaged in optimization of movement of the equipment: prompt to the driver where and how to go to what warehouse to bring this sort of coal. All this is automated. Also we monitor quality of work of the driver, fuel consumption. We know a route, we measure fuel consumption depending on load of axes, from road slope angle. It is important for us - about 30% of cost value of coal production are expenses on fuel and lubricants.

At production the task of prevention of hit of metal in coal is also relevant. At the excavator metal teeths on a ladle – a supply. We are going to implement control using computer vision. The camera constantly considers quantity of teeths on each ladle. If a system finds out that they became less, it gives a signal, the tape of the conveyor stops, the batch of coal leaves on the special pipeline for examination.

Vadim Pestun: Process of coal production in the mine the most dangerous and the most sensitive to a large number of external factors. Constantly it is required to monitor gas contamination, to blow mines. The movement of the combine on layer happens not continuously (production – a stop - rewiring), it is necessary to coordinate different crews, to provide them with the necessary materials. That precisely the nobility where what equipment is that needs to be lowered to the mine we use a complex system and process of marking and identifications based on RFID tags.

How to provide positioning in the mine? It is possible to use a triangulation method by means of Wi-Fi, but it does not give required accuracy because of the specific requirements to the equipment caused raised pozharo-and potential of explosion in mines - the equipment should bear blow during the fire and stand several days. Energy consumption should be very low. Therefore – decrease in energy consumption leads to decrease in signal intensity and "zauzhivaniye" of opportunities of communication in mines.

And on open pits at us the return problem. The sizes of a pit can be very big, height of layer can reach several tens of meters. There is very low density of a covering, and we should use different options of mesh networks (network of mesh topology). All equipment, everyone a component, whether it be the excavator or the dump truck, at the same time is the send-receive device.

Vadim Pestun: Yes, there are special software solutions which are engaged in planning taking into account long-term and spot demand. We can define what types of coals at what mining enterprise we need to receive. From this the plan forms. And follows from the plan how many it will be required people, the equipment, energy and other. We solve such problem every year and we specify every month. Software, optimayzer, in particular, the product River Logic is for this purpose used special.

But planning is required on the different temporary horizons. Let's take the horizon of 5-20 years, on it the specified type of planning does not approach, it is already necessary to become attached to geology. We should understand how many at us in general is coal whether it makes sense to continue production on the specific field. For these purposes there are absolutely other products which allow, coordinating quality of coal in metorozhdeniya, geology, arrangement and many other parameters, to create strategy in relation to this or that mine or a section. We cannot precisely consider demand at this stage, but it is desirable to make the forecast.

From long-term plans shorter plans form. On the horizon 1 year we can accurately understand how any of our 100 customers will behave. On the horizon 1 month we will understand the requirements on spare parts, labor resources, complexity connected with logistics. On the horizon in 1 day we know even more precisely what at us specifically occurs. All these horizons should be connected and planned, and extent of communication on top should be very high. We understand that these purposes require the certain integrated business planning. Also we hope that SAP solutions we will be able to close this requirement. Though at each level own optimizers will be used.

Vadim Pestun: Without IT this business would not go at all. Everything that I to you described, practically each step anyway IT is dependent.

Vadim Pestun: In the large company having rather long story of automation, the SCADA level impracticablly to construct on one platform. There is a lot of solutions, each producer tries to use the platform, but we try to sustain a certain narrow range (platforms).

At the level of MES we use about 6 different systems. But they (in very large number of cases) should be different as the different MES systems are required for ports, logistics, enrichment factories, open or underground mining operations.

At the most top level we try to hold the minimum set of systems and we consider that there are quite enough two platforms from two producers: SAP and Microsoft. There are systems for which we could not find the suitable solution in the market, for example, transport logistics. The number of cars which we process, 10 times more than at other mining companies. It was simpler to us to take and solve this problem "on a knee", having written an own system, taking into account all our features and know how of business processes.

Vadim Pestun: We try to use reasonably and restrictedly external consulting. We should react to the changing business needs quickly. For these purposes more simply and more effectively to have an own pool of resources which is as close as possible to business and solves their problems. Of course, it is not obligatory at all that all these resources were in your state. The balance of external and internal resources is necessary.

Vadim Pestun: As the ERP platform we use SAP ERP, all accounting modules and also BI, SRM and HR.

Also the first steps towards TORO were taken, when using the module SAP PM. In my opinion – there are pluses to move this way. So far we analyze, how far we can promote for reasonable time and money what business effects will be. We have in-house development based on the IC "Parus" with which 10 years the production block works, in which a lot of statistics, descriptions of process charts and repair plans is saved up. We should pass a fork what to do next – replacement or integration of these systems.

Development of SAP ERP goes in the direction HANA and S/4 HANA. I hope that from the classical ERP area as accounting transactional systems we will move to the ERP area as enterprise management systems and the support of business solutions capable to work with data in real time.

Vadim Pestun: Yes, this live, important direction. Not further, than in a year you will see result. I hope that on some of assets of SUEK pilotless dump trucks will run, to work robotic drilling-and-blasting machines and to fly the pilotless drones capable to considerably change work of surveyors.