In Greek mythology (no, no.. keep reading.. ), the Sword of Damocles is held by a single horse's tail hair above King Dionysius throne which Damocles, an upstart courtier, panders the king to occupy. The king allows him to sit, but shows him that with great power also comes great responsibility and danger, the horse's hair could break at any moment... and no matter how powerful you are, it's 'Goodnight Vienna.’
And now consider Eka's InSight CM - Site Automation Control (SAC) software which runs 95% of Australia’s grain, iron ore, and coal export terminals and has done so for the last 15+ years. Eka understands the great power of SAC but also the great responsibility placed on this port export software — to run seamlessly year after year, contributing to the economic benefit that the smooth export of Australian commodities brings. And now Eka is increasing the power of its SAC suite and offering new features that mitigate the risk of 'Damocles sword falling.' Eka is formally launching the latest release, Gen 8, of SAC, built around Advanced Smart Decision Making to enhance efficiency, save costs, and minimise down time.
Bold claims! So what does Eka mean by Advanced Smarts? First we need to understand what SAC does. At a high level, it graphically models and controls all of your plant at (but not limited to) an export terminal – that is, the bulk commodity receival grids; the conveyor belts that take the commodity to a storage bunker, stockpile or silo; the many conveyor belts that take the bulk commodity to special plants such as surge bins, blending plants, cleaning/fumigation plants; and finally to the conveyor belts that lead to the ship loader. Now the clever bit; after modeling your site, SAC directly controls the individual plant by integrating at the PLC level – instructing conveyor belts to turn on and off, opening valves to let commodity flow out of silos, positioning the ship loader over the correct hatch, and monitoring the flow rate and quality so you know what is being loaded, where it is going, and when the task will be complete.
But with this great power comes risk. Time is money, especially when I have shipping slots, schedules to meet, or demurrage fees hanging over my head.
The vessel needs to leave in 6 hours and a conveyor belt has just broken down.
No problem.
SAC has a stored backup plan and can instantly re-route the commodity to the ship loader using other conveyor belts.
Want to minimize your power usage? Other task management systems required that all the equipment along the route (for example, all the conveyor belts) to be up and running the second you start an operation – but that's not the case with SAC; it knows where the commodity is along the route and starts and stops equipment ‘just in time’ – saving you power plus wear and tear on equipment.
Want to relocate the ship loader to the next hatch? SAC allows a suitable product gap along the route, meaning that as the ship loader is repositioned, the product is ready to start loading – again saving time and increasing your efficiency.
Want to ensure that you deliver the correct quality within specification? Blend control and tracking features predict the blend ratios at downstream convergent points. The system then automatically regulates the feed from the sources to maintain the required blend ratio; any blend imbalance will be displayed to operators. The system is also capable of automatically stopping the source feed locations if the blend imbalance exceeds a pre-configured tolerance level - looks like that sword still hasn't dropped.
Want to instantly see...
- where your product is
- what tasks are running
- what tasks are to run next
- when an operation will finish
- how much power is being used
- which alternative routes are available
- which plant has failed or is not available due to maintenance
- what blending is being carried out
- stats on the last hour, day, week, or month performance
SAC enables bulk material handling sites to increase throughput by providing unprecedented accuracy in inventory and quality tracking. With SAC, site operators can graphically see all assets and effectively plan receival, transfer, and loading tasks at grain facilities, mines, terminals, and storage and handling facilities.
SAC has it all. It looks like we've tied a few more horse's hairs to that sword…