RFID Refines Copper Quality For BHP Billiton

When BHP Billiton needed a way to improve its copper refining capabilities, it teamed with CSC to conduct an innovative study of Radio Frequency ID (RFID) technology. The result: increased efficiency in copper refining and the production of higher-grade copper.

The Challenge

Prior to the study, damaged stainless steel cathodes, used in the refining process to extract copper, produced a lower grade of copper. This was costly to BHP Billiton, the world's largest diversified resource company.

Ten percent of the copper produced in BHP Billiton's Chile-based Cerro Colorado mine alone might be off-grade, resulting in decreased revenue and increased cost to manually separate contaminated copper. The plates were visually inspected, but there was no way to identify and track individual plates because identifying technologies such as bar codes couldn't withstand the acid corrosion.

BHP wanted to explore whether RFID technology, which uses tags and readers to track people or objects via radio wave transmissions, could track the plates. According to Dennis Franklin, account executive for CSC's Australian Resources Sector, "If RFID could be used to increase quality, BHP could demand more of a premium in the marketplace."

The Solution

RFID technology is commonly used for supply chain initiatives. However, the lack of universal frequency standards across all countries challenges global RFID implementations.

Within an internal process like copper refining the frequencies are limited to an environment controlled by BHP Billiton. Within this environment, RFID was expected to track and trace cathode performance effectively, provided that the technology could survive harsh conditions.

CSC and BHP Billiton tested the effectiveness of RFID in the company's Cerro Colorado tank house, in a hostile environment that included acid mist in the air, water temperatures of 190 degrees Fahrenheit and short-circuiting.

Two hundred RFID tags—embedded in one-inch protective capsules—and readers were implemented and left in production for six months. The trial demonstrated that the tags and readers could survive for six months before requiring maintenance.

The tags were read with greater than 95 percent accuracy, but Franklin says that the coup of the project is the ability to track and maintain status data on the condition of the cathode. Damaged cathodes still exist in the tank house to a degree, but now repairs can be scheduled and managed more effectively.

The Results

With RFID technology successfully operational at Cerro Colorado, BHP is in the process of building an automated pilot mine in Peru. Eventually a fully automated mine in Chile that is expected to increase safety for workers on the job.

Additional ways to integrate RFID technology into mining are also in the works. CSC is developing a traffic management solution for vehicles in an underground mine, and track and trace applications for warehouses and people working underground. Currently, fewer errors result from the direct transmission of data into a database, so the technology is being used to manage training, payroll and the ability to grant access to specified areas.

“This technology is an enabler that will allow us to significantly reduce the capital cost of the plant," says Alan Pangbourne, project manager of Spence Development at BHP Billiton.