Gold Fields partners with RCT at Granny Smith mine

Australia’s Gold Fields has partnered up with tech company RCT’s in an effort to transform its Granny Smith mine and machine fleet. The companies have been partners in various projects for over 20 years. 

The Granny Smith project saw RCT’s Kalgoorlie-based team of innovative technicians upgrade the site’s six existing Cat loaders from analogue to digital requiring the Kalgoorlie team to design and build specialized mounts and overhaul the site’s existing cabins. In addition, a total of 11 area access controls (AAC) were also converted from analogue to digital to facilitate the upgrade.

The team converted three of the site’s existing analogue TeleCabins and transformed them into digital, ControlMaster automation centres for underground use and two surface automation centres to digital as well. All this was part of RCT’S full-scale digital communications solution, and the technology has been in place since December.

“The ability for the operators to mine from the surface with a pristine picture/video thanks to the digital network, has meant they have been able to increase the number of buckets per shift, while adding to the comfort of the operators,” said Granny Smith mine manager Michael Place. 

“Implementing the new digital infrastructure RCT Connect has significantly improved both the availability and reliability of Granny Smith’s semi-autonomous remote production loaders and stoping fronts to date,” said Place.

To learn more, visit www.RCT-Global.com.