Scheduling software and the PI System

Mining companies are a bit different than traditional manufacturers in that they don't have plants or factories, they have mines. However, many mining companies have mineral processing plants that are more like a plant or factory. So, the systems that mining companies tend to use are different. On the mining side - pulling the ore out of the ground and moving it to the next step of the operations by truck, rail or ship - this is quite different than manufacturing so production scheduling is different. They would have some longer-term mine planning system that would tell them where to dig over time, they probably have something shorter-term that tells them where they are digging and then some software to manage all of the resources - trucks, shovels, loaders, etc., that tells them where these resources should be. But, they aren't typically producing a product so there isn't so much production scheduling software involved as there is production management software - keeping track of the resources, the quantities mined and moved. Since OSIsoft PI would work at the machine or asset level - collecting the real-time data, then it's probably more likely that PI would be a data source to these other systems. Also, on this side of a mining business, there is no Manufacturing Execution System (MES) in place - there isn't a factory where you track the movement of materials, you track the movement of the resources. And, the product produced is the amount of ground taken from the earth.

On the mineral processing side of a mining company (and some have both sides, some just one or the other), there are generally fixed plants where all of the mined material is taken and the good is separated from the bad. In this case, the material will go through a series of steps to get the usually small amount of good ore (perhaps 2-5%) from the large amount of not required material. This is more of a manufacturing process - could be a few steps (for coal, for example, it could be a quick sorting process and washing) to gold where 8-10 or more steps could be required including a considerable amount of chemicals and electricity. Again, the systems here are more of production management than MES or production scheduling as it's usually a flow or batch operations, in some cases, similar to a chemicals or making aluminum or steel (for example, copper uses a smelting process similar to aluminum). This is where PI has been used extensively for a long time and it would collect the real-time data from all of these operations. But, there is still no real production scheduling software used  - it is more of production management. Still, as above, in many cases, PI will send data to these other systems.