A real-time event-driven database productivity and maintenance planning tool for continuous surface mining operations

This paper presents a data management application driven by real-time events, which has been developed as a productivity and maintenance planning software application to be used in the surface lignite mines in Northern Greece. The mines operate using a continuous mining system comprised of multiple bucket wheel excavators, belt conveyors, spreaders and stackers. There is a control centre for each mine, comprising of aspect servers, OPC servers and a SCADA system which interfaces with PLCs at each equipment unit in the field. The overall data management infrastructure is installed on the main network system and draws data from the OPC servers at each mine. In order to collect the data, the application is developed using event driven functionality as well as data polls. Data can then be modified by the control tower personnel. The application generates reports on a daily basis for production monitoring, productivity, equipment performance and utilisation as well as various maintenance tasks. The system has been in operation at the surface lignite mines in northern Greece since 2011 and has been embraced by mine personnel for decision making and planning.