Wenco Management improves gold mines in Burkina Faso

Bissa and Bouly are two separate open pit mines located roughly 5 km from each other. Bissa launched in 2013, while Bouly, a newer operation was commissioned in September 2016, meaning to expand on the flagship Bissa mining operation.

To improve the operation, Wenco decided to manage their fleet based on an Australian mine that utilised a similar fleet of vehicles. This decision resulted in a 20% reduction in material movement costs, which proved to be a significant factor in the selection of the Wenco solutions.

Wenco is to be implemented at Nordgold’s Bissa mine and will manage the fleet and optimise dispatch, as well as manage maintenance applications at both sites. Wenco solutions will be installed on the loading and hauling fleets, and auxiliary equipment. Wenco’s communications system will be integrated with Norgold’s local system to allow the sharing of data between the fleet management and enterprise resource planning systems.

Bissa-Bouly is focused on optimising their loader utilisation to greatly improve plant output. Their spotters at the loading area will use “toughpads” to connect directly to Wenco in the loader to assist the operator with loading material. In addition to the above-mentioned applications, Bissa-Bouly will also use PitNav, Fleet Awareness, and Wenco’s newest product, the Avoca Intelligence Suite. Avoca provides the data storage and exploration power that helps mines discover insights and track trends in productivity, operator performance, and safety. The Wenco technology will add a fleet awareness capability to reduce the associated risk with high levels of dust, preventing the possibility of particles damaging the awareness equipment. Wenco’s system will also generate reports by itself, reducing the amount of data processing and calculating needed. A reduction in manual paperwork allows for more time for data analysis and operational improvement focus, rather than data collation and report generation.

“To elaborate on the specific tasks, Bissa-Bouly is a large mining area with many common challenges,” says Ruan Knoetze, sales manager with Wenco. “We look forward to a long and beneficial partnership with Bissa-Bouly, the newest operation we are working with from the Nordgold organization.”

Read the article online at: https://www.globalminingreview.com/mining/16082017/wenco-management-improves-gold-mines-in-burkina-faso/