Vale Canada Limited
Vale's Copper Cliff Deep Project is divided into three phases, focusing on refurbishing and developing key mining areas.
BESTECH was tasked with leading all electrical, instrumentation, automation, and communication upgrade and design work for Phase 1, which necessitated a comprehensive audit of the existing Schneider-based programmable logic controller (PLC) infrastructure.
SCOPE
BESTECH’s approach began with gathering all existing documentation and conducting a rigorous field audit to inspect and verify all 50 PLCs onsite. The team worked to identify which PLCs were obsolete and could be decommissioned, and which ones required basic upgrades, utilizing backplane adapters to integrate new input/ output with existing systems, or full upgrades involving complete hardware redesigns and potential consolidation of multiple PLCs into a single unit.
BESTECH then outlined various upgrade strategies, ranging from decommissioning unused PLCs to basic and full upgrades that leveraged the existing Schneider upgrade paths or involved more extensive redesigns.
OUTCOME
The project culminated in a detailed final report that not only provided a clear roadmap for upgrading the PLC infrastructure at Copper Cliff Mine but also set the stage for the subsequent phases of the project. This report included a strategic plan for conversions during Phase 1 and outlined improvements that would benefit future phases.