Blog Contact

Trichromatic Visual MIPs for Plant Shift Supervision

On a busy concentrator, the handover board tells only part of the story. A crusher may be stable while flotation drifts, a reagent line may be awaiting a permit, or a night-shift operator may be managing a feed change that was not in the plan. Trichromatic Visual MIPs gives supervisors a shared, plant-wide view of those conditions before they become production problems.

Rather than replacing metallurgical judgement, the system combines red, green and blue status cues with operating data, inspection records and accountable human checks. It is especially useful where the control room, maintenance bay and field crews work apart, and where a single verbal message can be interpreted differently by day and night teams.

For Australian operators, the value is not novelty but consistency. Clear visual routines support safe handover, rapid escalation and defensible production records while fitting the long rosters, remote sites and contractor-heavy operating models common in mining.

Seeing the shift at a glance

Visual MIPs should function as an operating language, not a decorative dashboard. Each area displayed on the board has an owner, a current state, a reason for that state and the next required action. The same information appears at the control panel, in the supervisor’s mobile view and, where practical, on screens near maintenance and assay areas.

Red can identify an abnormal condition requiring immediate intervention, green a verified normal state, and blue a planned activity, controlled change or pending check. These meanings must be fixed during design and never improvised at the board. For field visibility, specialist camera and inspection providers such as Cavendish Instruments can support appropriate imaging hardware, provided the images answer a defined operational question rather than simply adding more feeds.

Colour should always be reinforced by words, symbols and timestamps. That redundancy matters for colour-vision deficiencies, dusty displays and hurried readings. A supervisor should be able to understand the state in seconds, then drill down to the alarm, work order, test result or permit that supports it.

Building the three-colour operating rhythm

Start with the rhythm of the roster. During pre-start, supervisors confirm that critical displays, interlocks, cameras, labels and communication channels are available. At handover, the outgoing and incoming teams review every red and blue item, assign owners and agree what will trigger escalation. The board therefore records continuity rather than merely listing equipment status.

During the shift, the system distinguishes a moment from a trend. A temporary red cue can be cleared only after the underlying action is closed; a recurring blue item can indicate planned maintenance awaiting isolation. Supervisors use short, structured check-ins at agreed intervals, while control-room operators retain authority over process adjustments.

Close-out is equally important. The outgoing shift records unresolved deviations, production constraints and temporary operating changes, and the incoming shift confirms receipt. Over time, this creates an audit trail of decisions that can be compared with downtime, recovery and maintenance outcomes, giving management evidence for improving the system itself.

Connecting supervision to plant performance

Visual status becomes valuable when it is tied to plant performance. Availability, tonnes per hour, product grade, recovery, reagent consumption, water use and deferred maintenance can be shown beside the operational state they explain. A red flotation section linked to a falling concentrate grade is more actionable than an uncontextualised alarm, particularly during ore testing and feed transitions.

Selected optical measurements can strengthen that context. For example, GenOptics SPR instrumentation may inform carefully defined laboratory or inline quality-control applications where its measurement method suits the material and process. The important control is validation: operators need to know the sample, calibration, uncertainty and response time before a reading can influence production.

The system should also compare actual performance with the current mine plan, including expected throughput and grade from the active ore blend. During crushing, grinding, gravity separation, flotation and gold extraction, supervisors can then separate an equipment issue from a metallurgical one and route each to the correct discipline. Visual information improves handover; it does not excuse a weak test regime.

Making the system work in Australian operations

Australian sites illustrate why a single control-room approach is insufficient. At a Kalgoorlie-Boulder gold operation, supervisors may move between the concentrator, assay laboratory and mine services while a 12-hour crew prepares for handover. In the Pilbara, fly-in-fly-out teams and remote operations make it especially important that the incoming shift can reconstruct status without relying on informal knowledge from the crew before them.

Large open-cut and coal operations add weather, dust, fatigue and mobile-plant risks. In the Hunter Valley, poor visibility can interrupt outdoor work and affect the movement of trucks and light vehicles; robust displays, readable symbols and clear voice procedures remain necessary. Australian teams often say “call it early” when a condition is uncertain, and the Visual MIPs workflow should make that candour easier rather than turn it into a blame exercise.

Design must also reflect how the local market is organised. Owners commonly engage engineers, equipment suppliers, specialist contractors and operational teams at different stages, with maintenance and production staff contributing during commissioning and ramp-up. Specification should show where processing equipment interfaces with sensing, supervision and work management, so responsibility does not disappear between packages. Consultation with employees, contractors and relevant safety representatives is essential, not a box-ticking exercise.

Recommendations for a reliable rollout

A controlled pilot is usually more convincing than a plant-wide rollout. Select one circuit with clear production and maintenance interfaces, establish a baseline, and test the colour definitions, escalation times and handover discipline over several rotations. The pilot should compare what happened on the board with what happened in the plant.

Measure adoption through response times, false signals, completed actions and operational outcomes rather than screen usage alone. Include a short review after each roster cycle so supervisors can identify confusing cues and agree revisions before they become accepted habits.

Keep the first release simple, record exceptions and revise the operating rules before adding more screens or data sources. A smaller system used consistently is more valuable than a sophisticated platform whose cues are disputed at handover.

Move from observation to accountable action

Scale-up works best when engineering, commissioning and operations share one design intent. EPC project delivery can bring plant configuration, mine design, ore testing, procurement, installation and operational support into a coordinated delivery structure, while local teams define how supervision should work in practice. Acceptance criteria should include response time, false-alarm rate, handover completeness and verified action closure.

Start with a working session using one shift board, one representative circuit and the real handover process. Contact Lozova to scope the pilot and leave with a measured improvement target, named owners and a commissioning date, so clearer supervision becomes an operating routine rather than another dashboard.