Customize Consent Preferences

We use cookies to help you navigate efficiently and perform certain functions. You will find detailed information about all cookies under each consent category below.

The cookies that are categorized as "Necessary" are stored on your browser as they are essential for enabling the basic functionalities of the site. ... 

Always Active

Necessary cookies are required to enable the basic features of this site, such as providing secure log-in or adjusting your consent preferences. These cookies do not store any personally identifiable data.

Functional cookies help perform certain functionalities like sharing the content of the website on social media platforms, collecting feedback, and other third-party features.

No cookies to display.

Analytical cookies are used to understand how visitors interact with the website. These cookies help provide information on metrics such as the number of visitors, bounce rate, traffic source, etc.

Performance cookies are used to understand and analyze the key performance indexes of the website which helps in delivering a better user experience for the visitors.

No cookies to display.

Advertisement cookies are used to provide visitors with customized advertisements based on the pages you visited previously and to analyze the effectiveness of the ad campaigns.

No cookies to display.

Client Reference

Manufacturing | Smelting | IIoT Continuous Monitoring

Realtime monitoring of critical assets proved to be a very good investment. This has saved significant downtime and production losses and helped to detect failures before they could happen. Repairs could be scheduled timeously during planned maintenance shutdowns with no loss in production time.
Download

Client Background

Our client operates a PGM group smelter situated outside of Polokwane.

The current infrastructure comprises a 68MW furnace fed by 33kV single-core cables. The concentrate is melted by energy generated when an electric current passes through the electrodes and resistive slag layer. On melting, two immiscible phases form: slag and matte. The furnace matte, containing the bulk of the base metal sulphides and PGMs, is denser than slag and collects naturally at the bottom of the furnace.

Electricity is the single most significant input cost for smelting platinum concentrate in the electric furnace and, therefore, must have a reliable power supply. This requires that all the electrical assets are available 100% of the time and that these are monitored 24/7 to ensure reliability.

Key Challenges

Premature failure of terminations: The challenge was to identify the defect using IIoT realtime condition monitoring and predict how big the risk of failure was. Not identifying this will lead to termination failure, which will lead to unplanned downtime and loss of production time.

Investigation during shutdown: The next challenge was being under pressure to do this investigation as thoroughly and quickly as possible while staying safe. Strict isolation and lockout procedures were implemented to open up panels identified for the investigation.

Eliminating costly failures: Not only is a failure costly to repair, but it leads to unwanted and costly downtime. An unwanted failure can lead to significant production losses, especially on this plant, where a repair can take from three days up to a week, creating massive losses.

Martec Intervention

“Intime” condition monitoring proved itself to be very effective in preventing catastrophic failure.

We use the process to the right to implement a monitoring solution to ensure failures are “seen” before they occur.

Assets are ranked from a level 1 – 5.

Download the client reference in PDF format to see even more findings.

 

Value Add

  • Reducing risk of failure
  • Ensuring more reliable plant
  • Restoration of a safe electrical system
  • Ensuring safe working conditions within substations
  • Saving millions in unwanted production losses

Tools and Technology used

  • IIoT Realtime Partial Discharge Monitoring
  • Visual inspections
  • Investigations

    How did you hear about us?