Dempos, mining, the Simputer..

["Frederick Noronha (FN)" <fred@bytesforall.org>]

http://www.express-computer.com/20041227/technology01.shtml

Tracking ore movements with the Simputer

Mining of iron ore and tracking it from the loading to unloading points is 
quite a task. Vinutha V says that Encore Software's Simputer offers a simple 
technology to keep a track of ore movements in the mining field


		The ore tracking system can be further enhanced to use a
		contact-free smart card, which could be Wi-Fi-enabled in
		the future -- Mark Mathias, President Encore Software

It's a classic example of how technology can help meet business challenges 
without requiring heavy investments in infrastructure. Tracking materials 
movement within a quarry or mine and unloading different grades of ore is a 
complex undertaking. Mining companies encounter enormous wastage of time and 
material and they have to bear the brunt of transportation and labour costs for 
mistakes. An ore tracking system becomes an evident requirement for optimising 
mining material management. Without any investment on the network 
infrastructure, Goa-based V S Dempo & Co, an iron ore mining company wanted to 
deploy a solution based on mobile computing that could solve their ore-tracking 
problems. The Encore Simputer has been used in many e-governance projects, 
e-post and traffic violation systems. An ore tracking application was developed 
by Deltra Software and ported on to a Simputer permitting the management of the 
field information flow and tracking of ore movements with minimum human 
intervention.

Harsh mining conditions

Eighty Simputers have been deployed at the Dempo mining field in three 
strategic points--loading (located at the mine pit), unloading and at the 
weighbridge. The entire process including the creation of routes from each 
location after accounting for variables such as the type of truck and the 
loading machinery and enforcing unloading behaviour is entered into the 
Simputer. Mark Mathias, president of Encore Software says, "Involvement of 
various vehicles and machinery at different locations was the main concern. 
Additionally the weather at the mining fields was extreme during the summer and 
monsoon seasons. Initially, the display panel would become darker when the 
temperature increased over 40 degree Celsius." Encore upgraded the Simputer's 
display panel to meet this challenge. The Simputer that was resistant to 40 
degree Celsius was modified to withstand 50 degrees.

Tracking the process

On a typical run, each weighbridge, loading and unloading point is recognised 
by a unique location code and a Simputer is deployed at these locations. 
Drivers accessing these destinations will be given smart cards with details 
such as the type of vehicle, type of material, tare weight (net weight of the 
load) and the type of the loading machinery. Once the transport vehicle or 
loading machinery reaches the destination, a supervisor swipes the smart card 
into the Simputer and finds if the data in the smart card and the Simputer 
match. If they do, loading, unloading or weighing of material will be carried 
out. At the end of the shift, a field executive takes a Simputer to each of the 
three locations and downloads the field reports from the Simputer used at each 
location for capturing field data or reports using IR (Infrared). After 
collecting data from all three locations, the data is then uploaded to the 
server.

Behind the scenes

The application software used in the entire process consists of the client 
programme residing on each Simputer and the server programme on a back-end 
server. The client software programs for different entities assigns location 
codes and routes, reads smart cards, checks the validity of vehicles and 
records data on smart cards. The server application takes care of data 
collection, report generation, downloading of supervisory information from a PC 
to a Simputer and uploading of data from Simputer to PC.

The Simputer uses 16 MB of flash storage to store at least a week's data, 
non-volatile storage for the operating system, the application and user data. 
The Simputer will connect to the back-end server through its USB Slave 
interface. Once a Simputer is plugged into the USB port of the PC, through a 
USB Cable, it will be assigned an IP address. The Simputer application will use 
socket programming to implement data transfers. The client application 
maintains its data in any internal format and can then transfer this data to 
the server that can use a database. Mathias says, "The ore tracking system can 
be further enhanced to use a contact-free smart card, which could be 
Wi-Fi-enabled in the future."