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Certiq, Atlas Copco’s new machine monitoring system, keeps equipment owners continuously updated on the performance of their fleets, paving the way for proactive maintenance and lower costs. Lhoist, owners of the Chaux de Provence quarry in the South of France, is a typical example.
The time: 5 am. The place: Provence, France. Drill rig operator Gabriel Gonzalez is already up and pulling on his overalls. He then drives to a local quarry and starts up his Atlas Copco SmartROC C50 drill rig. It is now 6 am. Meanwhile, Benjamin Dubar, who owns the rig, is somewhere else on the planet, perhaps in another time zone. But he is just one click away from the action. Dubar is Plant Director for Lhoist Southern Europe, the international contractor that operates the Chaux de Provence limestone quarry. And even when he is many miles away on business, he needs to stay on top of things.
For example, he wants to know the position of his rig, its fuel status, engine and hydraulic oil pressures, and whether there are any alerts that may need immediate attention. He also wants to know how many holes have been drilled, and to what depth so that he can start up the blasting operation at exactly the right time. All this data is now easily accessible, provided he has access to the Internet. And this is the way drilling is being increasingly managed in the 21st century.
"Certiq allows us to get technical assistance without time and mileage to the benefit of everyone concerned."
Real time data
Lhoist is one of many European companies to be making use of Certiq, Atlas Copco’s new telematics* system, and gives equipment owners like Dubar a complete overview of his operations in real time, 24/7, from anywhere in the world. Certiq gathers, compares and communicates vital equipment data to the user via a web portal. The information is presented as tables, graphs and bar charts for each individual machine in the fleet. From now on, Atlas Copco will be successively rolling out the Certiq system on the majority of its mining and construction equipment, both for surface and underground applications. The advantages of this are plain to see. For example, maintenance can be truly proactive as it can be organized in real time. This reduces downtime, and enables maintenance to be carried out at the most convenient times of the day. Troubleshooting can be done from a distance, aided by alerts and historical data archived in the system. And it also helps company’s like Lhoist to identify areas that are in need of improvement, perhaps requiring additional operator training.
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