Nkomati represents one of the largest nickel reserves in South Africa, having estimated reserves of 408.6 million tonnes of ore grading 0.33% nickel.

What was Nkomati’s problems and needs?

Focus areas of the operation include recovery, production rate, quality, equipment availability and reliability. A complex ore body places special demands on decision-making within the processing plants. Nkomati identified the need to extract maximum value from process data.

Investment in instrumentation, control and laboratory analysis generate masses of data. Nkomati requested a service driven solution backed by a structured methodology and technology to extract knowledge from data. Furthermore, the service should communicate information in a way that facilitates training and development of Nkomati staff to enable better and more consistent decision-making. The ultimate goal is to implement a platform to facilitate pro-active management of adverse conditions for process and equipment.

How did Time-in-State®(TIS) help?

Time-in-State® (TiS) started working with Nkomati in 2011 and Nkomati have been using their services since. During the service interval Time-in-State® have been used to execute optimization, improvement, root-cause-analysis, deriving process recipes, providing input into strategic planning, training, real-time equipment monitoring, and real-time process monitoring. The project has generated multi-million dollar returns.

How the process ended in success.

Time-in-State® (TiS) provides the needed technology and services to monitor process and equipment used by Nkomati. The implementation delivers almost immediate feedback regarding compliance with strategic objectives and provides early warning of deteriorating plant performance (e.g. more than 12 hour early warning of mill motor failure or advance warning of conditions that may affect mill performance in an hour’s time).

Time-in-State® automatically interprets data to present information that facilitates effective prioritization of tasks and appropriate deployment of scares resources. Laboratory / mineralogy data, process data (levels, flows, temperatures, electrical current, etc.) and costs are all synchronised and interpreted to provide clarrity of the conditions that deliver optimal performance.

Time-in-State® delivered multi-million dollar returns based on initiatives associated with process improvement, cost, energy efficiency, risk mitigation, quality, throughput and equipment performance advances.