1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a primary product production system, and a method of supplying material for a primary product production system. More particularly, but not by way of limitation, the present invention is directed to the provision of raw materials in a manner that provides, inter-alia, an improvement in the delivery and/or selection of supplied materials used in primary product production systems and methods.
2. History of the Related Art
Systems and methods used for the supply of raw materials and the production of a primary product are generally based on a large scale. For example, in the production of Hot Metal, raw materials, such as iron ore and coal are sourced from separate mines, which are usually geographically remote from the foundry site where the Hot Metal is produced. These bulk raw materials are then usually transported great distances by road and/or rail and/or ship and a system of cranes and conveyors to the foundry. However, it is current practice also to stockpile the raw materials so that the supply of the raw materials into the foundry can be coordinated with foundry output and customer orders. In other words, raw materials are generally mined and transported to a stockpile near the foundry or a remote site until they are required by the foundry.
In business terms, a stockpile is considered to be an under-utilised asset. In effect, there are costs associated with the provision of a site to store the raw materials, lost opportunity cost in terms of cash flow, in that expenses have been incurred in the mining/supply of raw materials, including transport, but the materials have not yet been converted into a saleable commodity and customers have not yet purchased the commodity, meaning the foundry has not yet had the benefit of cash flow from commodity sales. There is a need to better utilise assets.
Where customers have specific needs, such as a need for the supply of Hot Metal having specific specifications and composition, the foundry usually supplies Hot Metal falling within a range of parameters as set out, usually, in a 12-month supply contract. The contract may provide a relative premium price for Hot Metal having a certain preferred composition, and also provide a relatively poor price for Hot Metal not having the preferred composition. It is known that the characteristics of raw materials vary for mine to mine, and even vary within each mine. Thus a stockpile of material from a mine or a number of mines will include possibly great variations in the raw material characteristics. When the stockpile is fed to the foundry, due to the variations in the composition of the raw materials supplied to the foundry, it is difficult to provide a relatively consistent grade of Hot Metal and thus, the foundry has difficulty in producing Hot metal of a quality within a customer's contract range and may, in fact, produce Hot Metal which falls outside the range acceptable to customers. This Hot Metal outside a customer's range is difficult, if at all possible, to sell, and thus represents another under-utilised asset of the business.
De-phosphorising plants have been utilised in the past to overcome the problem of the production of Hot Metal which is unacceptable to the foundry's customers. This involves further and/or additional processing of the Hot Metal. Not only does this involve the construction and operation of another plant, but the reprocessing involves moving the liquid Hot Metal to this intermediate plant, then bubbling an inert gas plus the de-phosphorising agent (e.g., calcium fluoride or barium fluoride) through the Hot Metal. This chemical action separates the phosphorous into a slag which is skimmed off prior to returning the Hot Metal to the processing chain, all of which incurs further expense in the supply of Hot Metal to customers. There is a need to enable the supply of Hot Metal which is more consistent in meeting specified parameters of customers.
Further improvements are also considered necessary in the manner in which materials are supplied to the foundry. Current practices of supply of material to a foundry, such as the supply chain, are primarily based on a linear programming technique. This is a supply chain of raw materials based largely on a lowest cost delivery basis. In this regard,
A system includes a network operable to provide information for production at a processing site of a primary product ordered by a customer and a computer interoperably coupled to the network. The computer is operable to receive an order includes a plurality of requirements for the primary product and a customer delivery date, determine a plurality of raw materials needed to produce the primary product in accordance with the plurality of requirements and the customer delivery date, the plurality of raw materials not being present at the processing site, and determine, via a network-accessible tag associated with each of a plurality of assets from which the plurality of raw materials may be obtained, information regarding the plurality of assets. The information includes raw-material transport times to the processing site and information regarding at least one of a physical property and a functional capability of each of the plurality of assets. The computer is also operable to coordinate, based on the information regarding the plurality of assets, sourcing of the plurality of raw materials from at least one of the plurality of assets so that the customer delivery date is met with minimal underutilization of the plurality of raw materials and repeat the coordination of sourcing responsive to changes in the information regarding the plurality of assets.
A method includes receiving, via a network, an order includes a plurality of requirements for a primary product and a customer delivery date, determining, by a computer interoperably coupled to the network, a plurality of raw materials needed to produce the primary product in accordance with the plurality of requirements and the customer delivery date, the plurality of raw materials not being present at the processing site, and determining, by the computer via a network-accessible tag associated with each of a plurality of assets from which the plurality of raw materials may be obtained, information regarding the plurality of assets. The information includes raw-material transport times to the processing site and information regarding at least one of a physical property and a functional capability of each of the plurality of assets. The method also includes coordinating, by the computer based on the information regarding the plurality of assets, sourcing of the plurality of raw materials from at least one of the plurality of assets so that the customer delivery date is met with minimal underutilization of the plurality of raw materials, and repeating by the computer of the coordinating step responsive to changes in the information regarding the plurality of assets.
A method includes creating, via a computer interoperably coupled to a network, a supply chain of a plurality of raw materials not present at a processing site, the supply chain applicable to a customer order for a primary product to be produced at the processing site. The supply chain includes a plurality of assets from which the plurality of raw materials are to be sourced. The method also includes tracking, by the computer via the network, each of the plurality of assets via a network-accessible tag associated with each of the plurality of assets. The tracking step includes the computer receiving information via the network from the network-accessible tag. The information includes raw-material transport times to the processing site and information regarding a physical property and a functional capability of each of the plurality of assets. The method also includes, responsive to the tracking step, modifying the supply chain via the computer and the network. The modifying step includes replacing at least one of the plurality of assets with a different asset of the plurality of assets.
The above summary of the invention is not intended to represent each embodiment or every aspect of the present invention.
Preferred embodiments of the present invention will now be described with reference to the accompanying drawings, in which:
Referring to
Referring to
Also, known time delays (for example based on statistical or industry data) for raw material or primary product delivery or in-refinery or in-foundry processing requirements/delays can be factored in to meet the customers delivery schedule. For example, transport times or delays and foundry processing or production times can be taken into account in meeting the customer order requirements. These times can be utilised in determining the scheduling and management of supply as put to the raw material source.
The present invention, through its access to certain data, such as asset information, delays and various scenarios (provided or calculated), provides a determination and/or coordination of primary product to meet customer requirements.
This determination of the source of raw materials is possible because information regarding each ‘asset’ is provided or gathered locally, and on a continuous or periodic basis. In one embodiment, each asset is ‘tagged,’ in other words, identified uniquely. This unique tag may be associated with the particular asset throughout its journey to the end product and customer. This information is provided in the present invention at a local point 14 and/or by means of a ‘tag’ denoted in
Details describing the asset's fundamental physical properties and functional capabilities based on the system-wide business performance metrics: in the particular case of coking coal for Hot Metal, typical examples are ash, sulphur, phosphorus, vitrinite, volatile matter, fluidity, crucible swell number, moisture, sizing. Other information as is required may also be described,
Business parameters to be optimised by the system-wide solution and managed locally at the asset, namely, variable & fixed operating costs, assets mission life and return on investment, productivity and yield and availability, presence of raw materials in the processing assets, history of operational use and performance of the asset, details describing the designed operating envelop of the asset, schedule of planned use of the asset, operational status of the asset including current status, history and forecast status against schedule of planned use of the asset, asset's physical configuration as (a) options during the phase when a solution is being sought, as (b) the proposed set points and or utilisation strategy when a system-wide solution has been found, and as (c) the current operating set-up during operational use, asset's operational capabilities (a) during the phase when a solution is being sought and (b) the functional set-up when a solution is being executed, the processing step being performed by the asset in terms of when the step is being performed, the processing being done on the material by the processing asset, the geographical location of the asset and/or the material being processing by the asset.
It can well be appreciated that this ‘local information’ does not need to be stored ‘locally.’ For example, using well-known communication techniques it is understood that the ‘local information’ may be stored or be accessible at any point in a networked system. The ‘local’ information simply is required to relate ‘locally’ to the particular asset.
Based on this local information 14, the present invention has in its database 20, or has access to 14, data concerning the assets I to n. Thus, it is possible to know that a certain quantity of raw material having a certain composition which is required for a specific order is able to be sourced from an asset or a number of assets. The raw material may also be sourced from a stockpile or mine, where the local information 14 regards stockpile or mine characteristics and related data.
Based on this knowledge of where raw material can be sourced, a schedule for delivery of raw material and coordinating the arrival of raw material to the blast furnace (where possible) is determined. It may also be advantageous for a particular raw material to be ‘reserved’ for particular client or order. In other words, it is possible to ensure a specific raw material or quantity is for only specific orders or customers.
In parallel are coal and iron ore time lines, in weeks. At time 21, iron ore is source from Port Hedland. At time 22, coal is mined. It is to be understood that the iron ore and/or coal may be sourced from a plurality of assets. For simplicity, we describe one asset source for each of iron ore and coal. The present invention is not to be so limited, however. From
Figure tables 4A, 4B and 4C illustrate examples of the determination undertaken by the present invention, and as shown in the Tables 4A, 4B and 4C, there are example product compositions and from which ‘assets’ or ore bodies they are sourced.
In the situation where a fresh determination is made and raw material is altered, say, due to the need for management of unexpected events, the present invention may have to find a raw material or a number of raw material source(s), whilst not being exactly the same as the raw material which cannot be delivered, that most closely matches or is the most commercially effective, to the raw material which cannot be delivered.
In fact, in one embodiment of the present invention, it is contemplated that provision is made for the determination of a relatively large number (even 90 or more) alternative supply chains, each alternative supply chain being determined bearing in mind a change in the initially selected supply chain. In the example above, the ‘Appin Mine Appinwashery’ was unavailable. The present invention, in this form, would have determined, in advance, an alternative supply chain to meet such a scenario, and thus the customer order can continue to be met by way of utilising this alternative scenario.
This is done periodically, continuously and/or automatically by the assets running forward predictions derived from the information provided locally at 14 and/or system of the present invention running predictions to generate scenarios when particular assets and supply chains would not be viable and when assets and supply chains would be at optimal utilisation. This results in the generation of asset portfolio management strategies for current and future customer requirements. For example, scenarios may be generated based on one or a number of events, such as floods, labour force disruptions, earthquakes, geo-mechanical failure of a mine, changes in water tables, equipment failure, road or rail infrastructure disruptions, weather conditions, technical changes, processing times or delays, delivery/transport times or delays, likely customer order changes, foundry efficiency or delays or updates.
Referring to
The customer order may include coking and/or energy coal 29 from one or a number of assets, lump and/or fines 30 from one or a number of assets. Equally, the order may seek blended coal 31, coke, nuts and/or breeze 32, hot metal and/or pig iron 33, sinter 34, and/or steel 35. It is to be understood that the primary product is a raw material which has been processed or refined in some form. The invention is not limited to only these primary products, and may include any primary product within the coal, Aluminum and/or steel making industries.
Although various embodiments of the method and apparatus of the present invention have been illustrated in the accompanying Drawings and described in the foregoing Detailed Description, it will be understood that the invention is not limited to the embodiments disclosed, but is capable of numerous rearrangements, modifications and substitutions without departing from the spirit of the invention as set forth herein.
Number | Date | Country | Kind |
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PR 3358 | Feb 2001 | AU | national |
PR 8562 | Oct 2001 | AU | national |
This patent application is a continuation of U.S. patent application Ser. No. 10/472,287. U.S. patent application Ser. No. 10/472,287 is a national-stage filing of PCT Patent Application No. PCT/AU2002/00195, filed Feb. 25, 2002. Both of the above-listed patent applications are incorporated by reference.
Number | Date | Country | |
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Parent | 10472287 | Oct 2003 | US |
Child | 12272067 | US |