14 Mar 2023 – Iritron’s year of consolidation – the Curate’s Egg, good in parts
Against some dismal economic fundamentals that particularly affect South Africa’s mining industry – a traditional target of Iritron’s electrical, instrumentation, control systems and decision support systems expertise – the company reports on some bright spots amongst the economic gloom.
It’s difficult not to dwell on the multiple challenges faced by all businesses in South Africa, caused by a combination of rising costs, Eskom’s failures and Transnet’s rail and ports conundrum, amongst many others, all resulting in throttled growth which filters down into reduced budgets for expansion projects.
Never the less, the buoyancy of the technology sector worldwide, has produced some green shoots for Iritron, a leader in plant automation, who report on advances in IIoT (Industrial internet of Things), smart sensors, on-line asset management, digital methodologies and information sharing in the IT environment.
According to Iritron CEO Alwyn Rautenbach, buoyancy is manifest in Gauteng and Western Cape amongst the manufacturing and agricultural sectors and the application of integrated digital control systems for both large and smaller solar energy installations is a growing aspect of Iritron’s business. The same is true in the mining sector. “In particular, and by combining our instrumentation and control expertise in the mining space with solar developments, we have launched the concept of solar-powered wi-fi trailers which brings wi-fi into the open pit environment allowing remote control of autonomous drilling operations and traffic control of vehicles operating in an open pit with accrued benefits of safety improvements, control, cost and fuel savings to the mine.” Still with advanced tech solutions, Iritron have commissioned a number of projects in both the mining sector and in food processing production lines.
“Automation, digital control and the complex synchronisation of electric motor driven equipment has been an Iritron success story and established us as the go to experts for commercial and industrial control management, plant optimisation and data recording” he advised.
In the mining space, the firm has been active in the delivery of automation and on-site instrumentation of crushers at an iron ore mine and for a different customer, the upgrading of highly complex motor control and variable speed drives (VSD) of plant controlling fans, pumps and conveyors.
“The first four of a total of 67 motor control centres have been commissioned on this project, on time and within budget, which involved the replacement of obsolete equipment with advanced electronics in an extremely confined space. This necessitated us redesigning proprietary equipment in conjunction with the OEM while ensuring that our design didn’t compromise the OEM certification and guarantees of the equipment. Furthermore, advance software programming skills allowed the synchronisation of conveyor motor drives of which there are up four VSD’s per conveyor, all of which had to operate completely in unison” explained Rautenbach.
Further mining projects on multiple fronts have involved management consulting to devise strategies and specifications for asset management systems, data sharing at ERP level and the integration of existing communication systems with more advanced communications and telemetry. These Iritron designed and installed systems can provide management with a completely integrated dashboard for day to day operations and for disaster management incidents allowing situation analysis of multiple components – power, water, utilities, firefighting, pumps and compressor availability, performance and consumption information which can be shared throughout the organisation if necessary in real time.
The global nature of the mining industry has placed greater emphasis of ESG (Environmental, Social and Guidance) issues and the accurate accounting, tracking and reporting of metal production – global mining companies place as much emphasis on accurately accounting and reporting on production and work in progress as with financial accounting and reporting. Iritron’s integration and software expertise addresses all these challenges.
Food production lines are another area of Iritron expertise with recent projects aimed at optimising canning and packaging operations for major producers.
“Currently we are commissioning a data recording system for measuring line efficiency of a canning plant that produces condiments in Tzaneen. The customer had a target of increasing plant capacity by 50% and required an integrated solution which measured line efficiency and performance of its fill and cap machine. Calling on two different technologies, our engineers were able to provide the customer with a system that records throughput against a target plan, identifies quality issues, records downtime and line blockages using electronic capture techniques. Such is the sophistication of the system that a plant manager can interrogate the system from any location via a smart phone” he said.
In a separate project, Iritron have upgraded a TrakSYS system to allow the tracking and seamless capture of palletised product’s mass and throughput from production to warehouse with a completely automated solution, removing a previously manual, paper based system.
And what of 2024?
“Mines are demanding more tech to provide automation and real time, online equipment condition monitoring for their critical equipment such as drainage pumps, compressors and bulk handling equipment like crushers and conveyors to improve efficiency and control costs. Collection of operating data of these assets and presenting the information in a visual form allows mine engineers to optimise operations and to predict and prevent equipment failures while recording machine performance and power consumption.
“Demand for copper and PGM’s by the battery electric vehicle manufacturers has led to an upswing of mining activities further north in Africa and Iritron have been following the trend and provided automated and system solutions for enterprises in Gabon, Senegal, Zambia and Tanzania – a situation likely to grow as the switch to EV’s gathers momentum” concluded Rautenbach.
Iritron’s commitment to efficiency solutions in mining, coupled with the company’s foray into the solar power industry with sophisticated control systems and specialised wi-fi enabled solar trailers, the future looks bright, despite local economic headwinds.
ENDS
About Iritron
Iritron is a Level 2, B-BBEE empowered engineering, integration and manufacturing company providing solutions in the fields of electrical, instrumentation, control systems and decision support systems. We have extensive local and international engineering expertise and a proven track record across various industries.
Contact:
Gerhard Greeff
Divisional Manager, PM & C. | Iritron
Contact: 082 654 0290
Email: gerhard.greeff@iritron.co.za
Media Contact:
Charles Poulter
Account Director | SWM Communications
Contact: 076 812 8429
Email: charles@swmcommunications.co.za