Against some dismal economic fundamentals that particularly affect South Africa\u2019s mining industry – a traditional target of Iritron\u2019s electrical, instrumentation, control systems and decision support systems expertise – the company reports on some bright spots amongst the economic gloom.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s difficult not to dwell on the multiple challenges faced by all businesses in South Africa, caused by a combination of rising costs, Eskom\u2019s failures and Transnet\u2019s rail and ports conundrum, amongst many others, all resulting in throttled growth which filters down into reduced budgets for expansion projects.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
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\u2019s business. The same is true in the mining sector. \u201cIn 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.\u201d Still with advanced tech solutions, Iritron have commissioned a number of projects in both the mining sector and in food processing production lines.<\/p>\n
\u201cAutomation, 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\u201d he advised.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe 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\u2019t 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\u2019s per conveyor, all of which had to operate completely in unison\u201d explained Rautenbach.<\/p>\n
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 \u2013 power, water, utilities, firefighting, pumps and compressor availability, performance and consumption information which can be shared throughout the organisation if necessary in real time.<\/p>\n
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 \u2013 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\u2019s integration and software expertise addresses all these challenges.<\/p>\n
Food production lines are another area of Iritron expertise with recent projects aimed at optimising canning and packaging operations for major producers.<\/p>\n
\u201cCurrently 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\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
In a separate project, Iritron have upgraded a TrakSYS system to allow the tracking and seamless capture of palletised product\u2019s mass and throughput from production to warehouse with a completely automated solution, removing a previously manual, paper based system.<\/p>\n
And what of 2024?<\/p>\n
\u201cMines 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.<\/p>\n
\u201cDemand for copper and PGM\u2019s 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 –\u00a0 a situation likely to grow as the switch to EV\u2019s gathers momentum\u201d concluded Rautenbach.<\/p>\n
Iritron\u2019s commitment to efficiency solutions in mining, coupled with the company\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n ENDS <\/strong><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n About Iritron<\/strong><\/p>\n 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.<\/p>\n \n Contact:<\/strong><\/p>\n Gerhard Greeff<\/p>\n Divisional Manager, PM & C. | Iritron<\/p>\n Contact: 082\u00a0654 0290<\/p>\n Email: gerhard.greeff@iritron.co.za<\/p>\n \n Media Contact:<\/strong><\/p>\n Charles Poulter<\/p>\n Account Director | SWM Communications<\/p>\n Contact: 076\u00a0812 8429<\/p>\n Email: charles@swmcommunications.co.za<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Against some dismal economic fundamentals that particularly affect South Africa\u2019s mining industry – a traditional target of Iritron\u2019s electrical, instrumentation, control systems and decision support systems expertise – the company reports on some bright spots amongst the economic gloom.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":17909,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[91,60],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-17908","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-iritron","category-press-releases"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/swmcommunications.co.za\/press-office\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17908","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/swmcommunications.co.za\/press-office\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/swmcommunications.co.za\/press-office\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/swmcommunications.co.za\/press-office\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/swmcommunications.co.za\/press-office\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17908"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/swmcommunications.co.za\/press-office\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17908\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":17910,"href":"https:\/\/swmcommunications.co.za\/press-office\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17908\/revisions\/17910"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/swmcommunications.co.za\/press-office\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/17909"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/swmcommunications.co.za\/press-office\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17908"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/swmcommunications.co.za\/press-office\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17908"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/swmcommunications.co.za\/press-office\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17908"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}