Large Scale Project Modelling
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Over 400 Complex Assets per Scenario
All Aspects of Maintenance Operation Modelled |
The Customer
BHP Billiton is the world’s largest diversified resource company. They are undertaking a two year pre-feasibility study into the expansion of Olympic Dam Copper/Uranium mine in Northern South Australia. The Olympic Dam Expansion Maintenance Development Team required a system to assist them with modeling the cost, resources and performance of the maintenance operation.
BHP Billiton choose iSolutions AMT Budgeting and Modeling solution as the engine to process the large volumes of data required to produce the maintenance budget.
The Challenge
Being the largest projects of its type in the world meant that the risks involved in equipment selection and cost estimation are high. A small variance in input costs can make a large absolute dollar difference to the overall project cost. Further, due to the large number of assets required for the project, a tool was required that could handle the first principle modeling of the parts, labour and materials required for each asset over its useful life.
A spreadsheet only model was not capable of handling the volume of data and would become cumbersome when evaluating many scenarios.
The Solution
iSolutions used their AMT Modeling and Budgeting Tool to build first principle life-cycle models of the equipment. Once loaded, various scenarios were run to model the risks identified by the project team. Post processing of the model’s output data provided the basis for further risk analysis and presentation. The costs for overhead items such as management, building maintenance, light vehicles, computers and power were also added to the model to provide a complete estimate of the
maintenance department budget and resources.
Well over 200 items of equipment each with more than 100 unique scheduled maintenance tasks each were modeled over the project’s 40+ year life cycle.
High risk components such as large diesel engines took advantage of AMT’s detailed modeling capabilities that allow multiple failure modes and failure probabilities to be entered and analysed.
The final output detailed a proposed organisation structure with manning numbers by trade type as well as the parts, labour and miscellaneous costs. Consumables quantities such as required fuel, oils, ground engaging tools and water were also estimated.
The Technology
Built on a highly scaleable SQL database and Microsoft .net 2.0 platform, AMT was able to handle the large asset base as well as the many scenarios required to access project risks.
The Benefits
Modify the key risk drivers such as labour, equipment availability and utilisation to model the effect on maintenance cost, manning and resources. Compare the costs and resources required to operate various models of equipment over life of mine. Quickly change input parameters such as expected utilisation, component life or task duration to show the effect on over all equipment performance and cost. House data is a secure database environment that is reliable and available to a number of users.
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