Rio Tinto, Cape Lambert & Dampier Ports adopt CcMS

After an extremely busy Q4 and Q1 a quick update on our products and services. PDS continues to refine, develop and enhance our conveyor condition management software (CcMS) to meet the changing needs of our clients.

While the Australian dollar continues to exceed the 1USD exchange rate, the strength of our currency has not slowed the export demand for our resources. Rio Tinto's expansion to its Cape Lambert port (with a projected throughput of 183 MT/a, part of an overall increase to 333 MT/a from its Pilbara operations) will bring with it our biggest single user of CcMS to date (97 conveyors onsite). April saw the implementation of CcMS and CcMS Mobile at both the Cape Lambert port and Rio Tinto's other port operations at Dampier, as part of their toolkit for onsite conveyor belt management and idler management strategies.

QLD markets are reporting significant reductions in forecast production targets in their last quarter due to recent floods affecting most operations in the area. Wesfarmers Curragh was one of those operations affected with 5km of their overland conveyor being submerged by localised flooding. Curragh has implemented our CcMS and CcMS.Mobile (Idler Management) solution in conjunction with their local conveyor service provider to track the high number of flood damaged idlers and provide better figures on annual usage and valuable failure statistics onsite.

Also in April after a long engagement, we completed an implementation of the entire suite of CcMS for Rio Tinto Alcan, Weipa . An onsite audit of all conveyors as part of the project meant we could fast track the use of the software by eliminating valuable time for onsite personnel in populating existing information.

Recent Developments in CcMS.Mobile

CcMS.Mobile provides features from our CcMS desktop software to a ruggedised handheld mobile device (“PDA”). CcMS.Mobile allows field data to be captured electronically in the field and synchronised with our CcMS solution in the office. This innovative use of technology simplifies the data capture process, eliminates hand written information and has been an integral step in our development of CcMS. CcMS.Mobile is now available with the following available modules: CcMS.Mobile (Idler Management) CcMS.Mobile (Belt Thickness / Hardness) Belt Thickness | Hardness module The capture of belt thickness and belt hardness information in the field has historically been either in hand written form or by use of data loggers built into proprietary Ultrasonic Thickness Testing gauges. The process of data capture can be time consuming to enter into CcMS or alternate reporting tools and provides a CM technician with no means of validating test results in the field. Test results have been known to “grow” compared to previous test results due to environmental conditions, calibration issues or testing technique. Our CcMS.Mobile (Belt Thickness | Hardness) module provides real-time data validation to previous results minimising errors in the field.