ABHR had a chat with Belt Wise managing director Beau Weiss about an innovation which may save companies millions, whilst also improving on-site safety.
Conveyor maintenance and optimisation cannot go overlooked. A smoothly running conveyor is vital in reducing costly downtime, boosting productivity, extending equipment life, and ensuring workplace safety.
Many companies nowadays are striving to find innovations that create a safer workplace, whilst also remaining cost-effective.
Belt Wise managing director Beau Weiss said the company has made a breakthrough discovery in preventative maintenance.
“We have created an automated splice quality assurance (QA) system, which is a world-first innovation,” he said.
“We have developed a software that essentially does a visual cross-reference of a splice and analyses it based on a learning algorithm and pre-loaded data.”
Weiss said every splice will have a specific method, print and standard in which the that belt must be joined. It then needs to match an instruction and comply with all necessary technical standards. If a splice does not meet the standards, the “failure can be catastrophic.”
“On a mine site, this is one of the major issues that can cause major rework, breakdowns, and problems,” he said.
“Normally, it arises due to a defective splice where something has been done wrong or has not been utilised correctly. It’s very difficult for a site to understand this or read the signs because they’re still overly reliant on manual and basic QA systems.”
A year ago, Weiss witnessed such an event. After a $37 million splice failure, Weiss decided it was time to develop a new way of doing things.
“To remove that risk, we have developed software that can, in real-time, provide compliance and cross-check visually, and then assess any potential deviation,” he said.
“The software cross-references visually against learning algorithms, data, and pre-loaded information about the specific splice. It assesses every single aspect of the splice in real-time, which can prevent any failure from happening before it does.”
Belt Wise’s system then provides a conclusive report, stating whether the splice is compliant or non-compliant.
“If the splice is non-compliant, the software will say why and provide an engineering viability assessment that states all of the reasons,” Weiss said.
“If the system says the splice is compliant, it then vulcanises or cures the belt. Once everyone is satisfied it’s compliant in the uncured state, they cure it, and that also requires a high level of monitoring to ensure the heat, time and pressure is correct among other critical variables.”
“What this system does is it provides asset reliability, accountability, and it improves the safety of everyone on site,” he said.
“This is a big deal because the sites can know that when they go back into operation, the belt is operating smoothly. The other thing is that if something goes wrong and the team need to identify what the mode of failure was, they can instantly determine whether it was the splice.”
Another issue the software helps to address is insurance claims.
Weiss said that companies can lose hundreds of millions of dollars due to an incorrect conveyor installation, and it’s in the best interests of not just the site, but the conveyor company to be using preventative measures like this to ensure they operate at a high standard and so that there are correct levels of accountability.
“This will mitigate splice failures significantly, effectively saving companies hundreds of millions of dollars every year whilst improving the safety of everyone on site,” he said.
Belt Wise have begun the initial rollout of the software at sites across Australia, with the system having been in development over the past 12 months.
Weiss said it took about eight months to get the technology to a state where it could be used effectively in trials. He’s confident that soon, this software will have the potential to become its own standard.
“I’m very confident that it will become a new code,” he said.
“I’d be very surprised if in two- or three-years’ time it’s not the mandatory requirement for a belt to be spliced using this software.”