14 Reasons Why You Need The Right Enterprise Asset Management Solution In Mining

• Category: Blog
• Tuesday, 28 August 2012 05:00
• Written by Herb Hadley - Global EAM Practice Lead, Director Solutions Development

Mining is a capital-intensive industry, largely due to the cost of purchasing, maintaining large inventories of capital equipment and expensive spare parts. The mining industry faces a number quickly evolving challenges including rising input costs, higher capital costs needed to bring supply to market and the increasing remoteness of deposits. These challenges are forcing mining companies to improve their systems and accountability.

Enterprise asset management (EAM) systems enable mining companies to keep track of equipment throughout their lifecycle and improve plant production availability. EAM systems not only track the location of the assets, but also their condition and maintenance history. Better equipment maintenance can deliver a high return on investment (ROI) with the added benefits of better regulatory compliance and the mitigation of risks related to equipment failure.

Mincom Ellipse is widely used in the mining industry. Recent changes in ownership and technology have led several Mincom customers to consider switching to SAP. For instance, industry leaders such as BHP Billiton and Rio Tinto now use SAP software.

Here are some frequent concerns of Mincom customers:

1. Risk due to the change of Mincom ownership and the resulting uncertainty regarding further software development and support
2. Software compatibility and capability issues, such as:
3. Ease of interfacing with mobile solutions, cloud computing and other modern technologies
4. Ease of making version upgrades
5. Compatibility with third-party solutions
6. Non-standard software architecture underlying Mincom (common business oriented language [COBOL] with bolt-ons)
7. Non-standard primary key methodology (database table joins)
8. Need for very specific programming skills, for example, expertise in Mincom COBOL, for data warehouse and business analytics
9. Non-standard terminology
10. Ambiguity resulting from the same terms being used in multiple contexts (for example, location, task, asset)
11. Focus on work-package management versus functional location instead of equipment hierarchy at functional location
12. The Mincom solution is not readily adaptable to current maintenance and logistics methodology. It also does not support risk-based methodologies and separate modules, and requires specific skills to implement geographic information systems methodology
13. Ease of financial reporting and regulatory compliance
14. Difficulty integrating acquired companies due to the common practice of Mincom implementation being highly customized for each company

Learn more about how mining companies are achieving greater efficiency and improving their ROI by downloading our FREE whitepaper “Migrating From Mincom Ellipse to SAP Plant Management”.