Monitoring for BHP Billiton Iron Ore, Mt Whaleback Mine | Australia

BHP Billiton Iron Ore is one of the world’s premier suppliers of iron ore, employing 13,000 people across the Pilbara (one of the 9 Australian regions). Mining operations are supported by the town of Newman while Port Hedland houses the company’s port and rail facilities.

Being more than five kilometres long and nearly 1.5 kilometres wide, the Mount Whaleback mine, established in 1968, is the biggest single-pit open-cut iron ore mine in the world.

In 2013, Sixense was asked to provide an integrated solution to manage all the monitoring data coming from Slope Stability Radar, Cyclops (robotic total stations working with prisms) as well as more classical instrumentation such as piezometers, inclinometers, extensometers and environmental measurements of rainfall data. The platform is also the centralised information system for ground control also integrating blasting data, visual inspections and reports.

The aim for BHP Billiton was to develop cross data capabilities for enhanced situation awareness and higher level alarming capabilities, through streamline operations, improve reliability and traceability of information and standardise architecture and procedures.

With advanced and real-time integration and processing capabilities, Sixense is the solution allowing for a effective ground control of this site. As a data hub, Sixense consolidates sensors data in its own database but also dynamically reads the information of systems from third parties (radar for example) for more flexibility.

Sixense platform was chosen among eight competitors through a selective process and is planned to be extended to all Iron Ore sites in Australia.