Potash mining control & monitoring system

Mining

Cleveland Potash are part of the ICL Fertilizers group, one of the world's largest fertilizer companies, providing end-users and manufacturers on five continents with a wide range of high-performance solutions - all from a single source. ICL Fertilizers' products include potash, phosphate rock, phosphoric acid, phosphate-based and compound fertilizers, speciality fertilizers and phosphate-based feed additives.

The requirement & Solution

The customer, Cleveland Potash, required a multimedia mode fibre network switch system to allow the control and monitoring of the PLC & SCADA system; which would also provide email warnings about network problems. They needed to provide a single-mode fibre network switch system to allow the control and monitoring of the PLC & SCADA system used for underground conveyor control systems; as well as a method of joining the single-mode fibre ring to the multimode fibre ring to allow for surface monitoring of the underground conveyor systems.

Results

The Amplicon data communications team worked with the Cleveland engineers to specify the EDS-405A and EDS-510A Moxa Industrial Ethernet Switches; these were used for the surface control system with one redundant ring network to manage and control the process to treat the ore; and a second ring topology controlled the conveyor belts for the transfer of minerals to the surface.

Why Amplicon?

The Cleveland engineers were impressed with the knowledgeable and consultative approach from the Amplicon team; and working in partnership the system needs were covered off with an appropriate solution that was easy to implement, offered the project future-proofing and came within the budgetary constraints.