It is important for Sedgman to be able to provide an ongoing mine site support service which is made possible through our off-site management and technical support team. Sedgman possesses a stable and experienced suite of technical professionals who can engineer and deliver mineral processing projects as well as optimise operations for our client’s sites.

The Sedgman Operations team harnesses experience from our new projects and existing Sedgman operational sites to develop our specialists and provide technical support to our network of sites. Our engineers can ensure continual improvement and ongoing efficiency of your minerals processing facility.

Our support engineers are experienced operations engineers who support all facets of full operations, delivering safety, availability, throughput, and efficiency outcomes. The work by the operations engineers focuses on:

  • Securing the process – efficiency, throughput, and minerals processing facility availability
  • Securing the cost – consumable optimisation, manning levels, and maintenance

The Sedgman operational team includes personnel in the following disciplines:

Metallurgy
  • Performing model simulations of predicted concentrator feed material to establish resultant processing performance
  • Minerals recovery and resource analysis
  • Facility process performance review and optimisation activities
  • Process system troubleshooting and rectification
  • Processing facility upgrade scoping and reporting
  • Operator training
Maintenance Specialists  
  • Assembly of facility maintenance life cycle models for cost and performance prediction
  • Failure analysis and reporting for equipment failures
  • Assembly of facility maintenance plans and documentation
  • Facility maintenance performance review and reporting (reliability and availability)
  • Maintenance system reviews, audits, and reporting
  • Lubrication and condition monitoring services.
Electrical and Controls Engineers
  • Optimisation of facility automated operating systems
  • Remote troubleshooting and technical support for electrical and controls issues
  • Scoping of electrical component and automation system upgrades.
Project Management
  • Management of facility debottlenecking and upgrade projects
  • Project cost versus benefit economic evaluation.
Mechanical and Materials Handling Engineering  
  • Review and improvement of materials handling system operations
  • Rectification of materials handling systems to eliminate spillage or blockages
Safety Specialists
  • Second party auditing functions against statutory, Sedgman or site-specific standards
  • Facilitation of risk assessment processes
  • Facilitation of incident cause analysis method (ICAM) incident investigation processes
  • Development of training materials to national competency standards
  • Training and assessing activities
  • Facilitation of change management activities

Off-Site Support

Our metallurgical and process engineering team can routinely monitor the data collected from sites. To support the operations team at site, the team utilises its skill set to review laboratory analysis and production trends. A week-day supervisory control and data acquisition (SCADA) data review of the operation of the minerals process plant circuits are compared against industry best practice and the guidelines from the metallurgists. This enables the process engineering team to give feedback to the operations management team regarding facility performance.

Our electrical and control engineers can log in to the site SCADA systems operator interface, programmable logic controller (PLC) and communication networks from anywhere in the world where there is a computer with an internet connection. We also provide remote access and monitoring with smart phones upon request. There is a range of support that the electrical and control engineer team offers to the sites including:

  • SCADA and PLC maintenance and backups
  • Remote SCADA and PLC modifications, optimisation, and improvements
  • Optimisation of plant sequencing to reduce start-up and downtime
  • PLC control loop tuning
  • Assist site with remote configuration of variable voltage variable frequency (VVVF) drives and instrumentation
  • Optimisation of instrumentation
  • Troubleshoot electrical and control system issues remotely
  • Control system audits
  • Pump loading investigations
  • Data collection and analysis (trends, alarm review, analysis, and optimisation)
  • Operator coaching (while demonstrating in real time on the operator interface)
  • Remote electrical and control engineer control support while running performance tests

Sedgman employs a team of maintenance professionals to service our operational site and provides consulting services for offsite maintenance and reliability support.

Our maintenance engineering support group can provide the following services:

  • Establishment of tailor-made computerised maintenance management systems (CMMS) and regimes for fixed process and mobile plants. This includes activity description, activity frequency, safety requirements, work method, tooling requirements, parts, and consumables.
  • The maintenance systems are loaded into the sites preferred software and on/off site training can be provided
  • Equipment and spares criticality analysis
  • Evaluation and benchmarking of existing maintenance practices
  • Equipment life cycle cost analysis
  • Maintenance strategy review and/or development
  • Structural integrity audits
  • Lubrication system audits
  • Equipment failure investigations and root cause analysis (fixed and mobile plant)
  • Condition monitoring
  • Thermography surveys
  • Screen motion analysis
  • Vibration analysis (mechanical / structure)