Content area
Full Text
Abstract
Metallurgical accounting in the mineral processing industry transforms accumulated process data, including flow rates and assays, into a coherent information format. This is used to rapidly provide production reporting and key performance indications. Comprehensive and coherent data must be a component of any system expected to accomplish reconciliation in the mass-balancing process. Quality issues are thus improved with such desired methods via a mass-balancing engine utilizing the results of measurements acquired by various on-line sensors, analyzers and sophisticated laboratory equipment. Metallurgical accounting, when accomplished through such an engine, provides high-value information in a simple, straightforward and simplified manner. Exceptional utility is then transparently available to authorized personnel for access to metallurgical accounting reports, production reports, mass balance results, performance indicators, and so on. This paper discusses how such information can be used to "drill down" into each result set by consulting the data hierarchy to evaluate and validate calculations and input data used to produce the specific results being queried. The power of such a system resides in the full and true integration of all production and laboratory data. What is integrated are the data thus acquired via a single user interface, a single database, a single configuration tool, etc. From this comes the derivation of contextual information and its maintenance. It is possible to reduce metallurgical accounting and production reporting from possibly hours or even days to a matter of minutes. The result is maximization of information reliability and availability from masses of otherwise discrete and difficult to access key data.
Key words: Metallurgical accounting, Knowledge management, Plant processing data
Introduction
Integration in knowledge management systems. The operation and management of an industry-specific mineral processing plant data system requires the evaluation of data from various sources to get the most complete picture on the performance of the plant. The raw data available from the different sources are typically not consistent because of limited accuracy of the installed instrumentation. Some of the variables might be even not be available because the costs of instruments cannot easily be justified or because they cannot provide direct measurements.
By using an integrated data-management system, the inconsistency of the different measurements can be automatically resolved by mathematical methods or can, at least, be highlighted for further corrective...