Kap software enhances mining maintenance.

The mismanagement of vehicles and equipment can needlessly cost a company millions of dollars, a problem that a Kapuskasing-based computing service and software developer is working to eliminate.

On a contract from the Washington Group, which operates a variety of metal, industrial mineral and coal mines, Kap Data & Systems Ltd. has designed a program which assists with equipment and vehicular maintenance planning.

"It's a developing trend for a good reason," says Miro Spacek, president.

"You get more value from existing equipment, and you stretch the dollars that you're making."

The program is already being used throughout four of the Washington Group's managed mines, including the Absoloka coal mine in Montana, the Serro San Pedro Gold/Silver Project in San Luis Potosi in Mexico, as well as Ontario's Kapuskasing Phosphate Mine.

Simply named "Kap Data software," the program determines what degree of maintenance will be necessary based on schedules put together by management, taking into account estimated levels of wear and tear on elements such as hydraulics and transmission. It then provides short-term and immediate alerts in order to inform the appropriate personnel that specific parts will need to be ordered in a certain time frame, or simply to provide a reminder that a maintenance session is scheduled to take place.

It also tracks scheduled maintenance procedures to generate service accuracy reports which inform the user whether specific equipment is being serviced too rarely or too often. Either situation can prove harmful to the bottom line, and as such, this program enables managers to maximize the use of their fleet.

"It makes the difference between using your fleet at 50 per cent and using it at 98 per cent," says Spacek.

As an example, he says that proper management of vehicular maintenance schedules can make the difference between making efficient use of a million-dollar piece of machinery, and being forced to purchase additional units as a result of wasteful planning.

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Spacek, whose company also created a computerized OHIP billing system for Northern medical offices in the mid 1990s, says there is a growing move towards maximizing efficiencies among companies who use large quantities of heavy equipment. In today's competitive environment, this is practically a necessity, he says.

Spacek says the program not only provides an outline of various efficiencies, but also helps American-parented firms with the ability to demonstrate an auditable history of their source data.

This particular ability has become much more crucial in recent years, following the creation of the Sarbanes-Oxley regulations in the wake of the Enron scandal, he says.

These U.S. securities and exchange regulations dictate that an American company must be able to demonstrate a distinct, auditable trail for all manner of financial activity so that officials can be held accountable, thereby reducing the potential for widespread corporate fraud.

For example, if a company claims to 15,000 tons of ore per day, it must be able to provide proof that it has the manpower and equipment to do so, says Spacek.

"The problem is that when companies start up a new project, they use the tools they have at hand, which is usually Excel spreadsheets and that sort of thing," he says. "When you enter a new value into a cell, the old value is erased and there's no trail as to how you got there. Without giving too much proprietary information away, our program creates and keeps such a trail."

Having used the software for a year, Louis Gendron, maintenance supervisor / planner, Kapuskasing Phosphate Mine says this auditable history also helps to track recurring problems.

"Beforehand, we had a good system but it wouldn't record preventative maintenance or track backlogs," he says. "Now, if we can go back and check the history to see if we've been repeatedly tackling a particular issue and if that means there's a deeper problem that needs to be addressed. It's a good planning tool, and a pretty good system all around."

By NICK STEWART

Northern Ontario Business