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Remote Operations Centres — Lessons from Other Industries

Conference Paper · October 2007

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Remote Operations Centres — Lessons from Other Industries
1 2
C T Farrelly and L R Records

ABSTRACT
Remote operations centres (ROCs) have become common practice in the petroleum,
defence and aerospace industries, mainly to keep people out of harm’s way, but also to
optimise their operations by maximising the effectiveness of scarce expertise.
In upstream petroleum, a critical shortage of expertise as well as the need for
deepwater submersible facilities has forced that industry to invest in remote operations.
Early successes for existing offshore platforms have involved the development of onshore
collaborative ROCs, with a number of operational roles being relocated onshore.
In defence, there has been a revolution in battlefield management, with the increased
use of remote sensor and communications technologies providing real-time information
back to remote command centres. While safety is a clear driver, the increased flow of
information also leads to better tactical and strategic decisions.
In aerospace, there has always been an imperative to minimise the number of people
who visit a facility to install and manage the equipment. This industry has taken the next
step in developing expert systems and intelligent agents so that ROCs can be completely
unmanned, with humans on call to manage anomalous events.
A common theme from these industries is that for ROCs to be successful it is
necessary to incorporate and integrate a number of emerging technologies. Most of the
early adopters state, however, that by far the biggest challenges are with gaining
stakeholder commitment and with the process and behaviour changes necessary for
successful operation.
The mining industry can learn from these industries to achieve: fewer personnel
exposed to hazardous situations, better reaction to tactical production issues and
emergency situations, more efficient and reliable operations, better production
throughput and better more collaborative strategic decisions.

INTRODUCTION
Running complex operations in remote mining locations is becoming more difficult due to the
increasing difficulty of attracting experienced staff to work in these locations. The increased focus on
both safety and production growth is also leading to an increased interest in remotely operated
equipment. In addition, site security is becoming an area of increased focus, and managing emergency
incidents in a complex operation is almost always hampered by the lack of rapid information sharing
among multiple parties, both on-site and off-site.
The increasing costs of providing a 24 × 7 manned operation is also a driver for optimising the
staffing levels both on site and in the back-office. The imperative for most operations to continually

1. Principal Strategic Consultant, Natural Resources Center of Excellence, Computer Sciences Corporation, 570 St Kilda Road,
Melbourne Vic 3004.
2. Chief Technologist, Consulting and Systems Integration, Computer Sciences Corporation, Suite 1900, 5051 Westheimer Road,
Houston TX 77056, USA.

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C T FARRELLY and L R RECORDS

keep control of costs means that automation of systems and processes will take time, and initiatives
need to demonstrate a clear payback to justify the time and effort against a portfolio of many other
useful ideas for advancing operational excellence.
In industries such as manufacturing, aerospace, defence and petroleum, one commonly targeted
area of automation improvement is to centralise, as much as possible, the acquisition, processing,
synthesis and analysis of an increasing variety of data and information. Instead of having multiple
systems spread over many different business functions and locations, the trend in these industries is to
collate as much of this information as possible into fewer operations centres that can also be located
remotely from the site.
Remote operations centres (ROCs) have been implemented by a number of industries as part of a
strategy to automate and improve the efficiency of operations and to provide a more reliable, safer and
more secure working environment ‘at the coal face’. The drivers in these other industries are very
similar to those in mining, including cost, safety, security and access to expertise.
ROCs are collaborative environments that are used for more than just managing the day to day
operations of equipment. Increasingly they are used to monitor and control every aspect of the
operation, including providing the data and information necessary at different levels of the business for
a variety of purposes. The ROC is the nerve centre of the operation which has been evolving in
capability to handle an increasing number of tasks through the application in a number of different
industries.
The manufacturing industries have been the most publicised examples of increased automation, and
this has gone hand in hand with refinement of work processes using a variety of techniques for
operational improvement (Six Sigma, Kaisen, Lean, etc). Since most major mining companies have
implemented similar business improvement programs over a number of years, there are many sources
of how these techniques can be applied.
The manufacturing sector has also pioneered the use of advanced process control and production
planning systems, and even in the mining industry the integration and management of data and
information from such systems are classed under the heading ‘Manufacturing Execution Systems’ or
‘MES’. This paper will not place any emphasis on the approaches developed out of the manufacturing
sector, since there are numerous sources of information on relevant approaches and case histories. For
example, refer the websites of the major MES vendors in mining such as OSIsoft, Honeywell, CITEC,
AspenTech and Siemens. The ARC Advisory group (www.arcweb.com) is also an excellent source of
material on MES.
This paper focuses on the application of ROCs in the petroleum, defence and aerospace industries.
There are a number of characteristics these industries have in common with mining, including remote
locations, harsh environments, safety imperative, large capital projects, engineering focus, use of
mobile equipment and a shortage of expertise. There have been a number of key lessons learnt through
the implementation of ROCs that the mining industry should consider.
While there has been some interest in developing ROCs in the mining industry, the only known
examples are those where remote teleoperated equipment is used in underground mining, such as the
Kiruna mine in Sweden (refer Arvidsson, 2005).

BUSINESS DRIVERS AND TECHNOLOGY ENABLERS

A buoyant commodity market is the right time to address these automation challenges and embed
‘faster and better’ for the long term. Improvements in automation are being made by equipment and
control system vendors every year, however, the complex range of existing plant and equipment at each

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site cannot easily be upgraded except during a major brownfield rejuvenation, which is slow and
expensive. ROCs can be one way of making a step change in automation without wholesale changes to
equipment and business processes on the ground.
Comparing mining to other industries needs to take into account the relative maturities of the
industries in the implementation of automated systems. Other industries have developed such
technologies over a long period of time and have business imperatives that require a higher degree of
maturity (Figure 1).

“Wall of
Leaders are focused on
Integrated deeper and wider
Collaboration” optimisation
The ‘Innovators’ have jumped
Majority are still over the wall and working
focused on towards levels IV and V
V
operational Full Network
Maturity & Benefits

efficiency Connectivity
IV
External Aerospace
Value Chain

III
Partner Depth and Defense
Defence
Collaboration Breadth of
Collaboration &
II Optimisation
Site-wide Petroleum
Integration

I
Functional Mining
Excellence

Function Site Asset Enterprise Network

(vertically (horizontally (selected (extended (fully connected
integrated & integrated & external enterprise extended
optimised) optimised) collaboration) collaboration) enterprise)

FIG 1 - Relative maturity of automation in different industries. Source: CSC collaborative supply chain maturity
model – Poirier (2004).

In mining operations, the common use of manual processes for data collection and reporting and
spreadsheets for analysis and planning help position mining at the base of the maturity scale. In
practice, the levels of maturity vary depending on the functions across the business, and some areas in
mining (such as long term mine planning) are more technically advanced than others.
Nevertheless it is still worthwhile looking at how other industries have made use of ROCs, since
many of the situations are similar and many of the lessons learnt are generic to any industry. That is,
while the detailed business processes and enabling systems may be very different, the way the
information is synthesised and used in the ROC is comparable.
The main business drivers in mining are also major drivers for ROC in other industries, including:
• grow quickly to meet market demand – leading to initiatives for integrating processes and
improving visibility along the end-to-end supply chain,
• maintain mandate to operate – continued relentless attention to safety and environmental sustainability,
• attract and retain capable people – and making the best use of existing expertise globally, and
• maximise productivity and return on assets – so every initiative needs a compelling business case.

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C T FARRELLY and L R RECORDS

Some additional challenges that are also driving the need for ROCs are:
• Monitoring the ‘hidden plant’ – a wide range of equipment falls outside the monitoring of normal
process control systems, such as mobile equipment. This equipment represents the ‘hidden plant’
and typically is manually inspected.
• Siloed operations – clear need for leveraging best practices between separate functions and
operations to save costs and mitigate risks.
• Cost and performance monitoring – high costs and performance problems can be buried or overly
summarised and may not be available to senior managers.
• Workforce turnover and training – lost skills due to retiring employees and other turnover results in
a depreciation of skills and continuing training costs, as well as loss of best practices knowledge.
• Merger and acquisition – non-standard processes and tools can hamper the integration of acquired
sites.
There are a number of technology enablers that help bring ROCs within the reach of any major
mining operation. The application of these technologies across multiple industries is helping to mature
the technologies, and in most cases there are common vendors of key components that are already
active in mining. The integrated nature of the systems involved in an ROC means that no one vendor
has a monopoly and the common practice of mining companies to be vendor-led may be one reason
why mining has been slow to adopt ROCs.
In addition, there are a number of global technology trends are also helping enable the capability for
ROCs. A review of these trends is summarised in a CSC study on ‘extreme data’ (Luczak, 2005), which
detailed the following trends:
• data collection and delivery in many places (‘data everywhere’) – intelligent sensors and motes,
portable devices, PDAs, smart phones, USB drives, digital cameras, smart cards, MP3 players,
implants, wearables, embedded processors;
• dimensions of time and space are becoming important (‘track and trace’) – location technologies
(GPS, RFID, GIS, mapping, cellular, satellites) and real-time monitoring technologies (video
cameras, smart dust, motes, biometrics);
• collaboration and knowledge networks (‘networked networks’) – interaction technologies,
messaging, conferencing, text-voice-video IM, wikis, blogs, VoIP, Bluetooth, shared workspaces,
peer-to-peer, virtual communities, Web 2.0 capability; and
• data that helps make sense of it all (‘metadata gives meaning’) – image-audio-video-text search,
XML, RDF, metadata, Semantic Web, taxonomies, ontologies, artificial intelligence, mapping,
visualisation.
IT Infrastructure advances have created further opportunities for ROCs. A review of these trends is
summarised in a CSC study on ‘connected world’ (Purcell and Bilowus, 2006). The trends relevant to
ROCs include:
• universal communication standards – IP has become the base for all;
• ubiquitous connection – mobile and home broadband connections extend the enterprise;
• increasing bandwidth, including new wireless protocols – mega bits per sec not Kbps;
• reducing communication costs – convergence of technologies – voice, video, data;
• wireless LAN goes mobile and broadband – eg WiMax and mesh networks;

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• pervasiveness of the Internet – promises of dotcom being realised by Google and eBay;
• real-time Internet via Web 2.0 – the Web will become the only interface;
• terrabyte data storage area networks – increasingly delivered as a service;
• expandable high availability servers – in managed secure data centres; and
• IT support on a worldwide scale.
There are many other IT considerations for designing what needs to feed into an ROC, including:
• virtual teaming: real time collaboration over distance with large and complex data sets; online
meetings and team rooms; video-conferencing; instant messaging;
• information and knowledge management: document management; search engines; email
management and archive; best practice repositories; people finders; social network analysis tools;
communities and knowledge networks;
• operations management: digital dashboards with key metrics continually displayed; event driven
systems routing critical information appropriately; distributed database systems; manufacturing
execution systems (MES); dynamic and scenario scheduling; automated process control; process
modelling and simulation systems;
• maintenance management: work order management; reliability based maintenance; condition
monitoring; maintenance tools and spares tracking; equipment design and history; failure mode
analysis; preventative maintenance scheduling;
• enterprise resource management (ERP): finance and accounting in real-time; workforce management
and HR systems; data warehouses for what-if analysis, KPI tracking and executive scorecards;
• artificial intelligence: troubleshooting with minimal human interaction; process optimisation and
self learning systems; managing complex systems of systems;
• virtual reality: operator training covering the full range of scenarios; remote control of equipment –
moving toward robotics;
• geospatial: geographic information systems (GIS); geology and mine planning systems;
• sustainability: OH&S systems; environmental monitoring; crisis management;
• external intelligence: Internet; newsfeeds; reference searching; market and competitor intelligence;
• application integration: Web services – service oriented architecture (SOA); enterprise application
integration (EAI); enterprise data models and XML data transfer;
• security: site access; intrusion detection and prevention; network and security management; data
and information confidentiality; and
• other relevant core systems: fleet management systems; integrated logistics and warehouse
management – including RFID tracking; capital project enablement – including plant design
systems and materials management.

PETROLEUM APPLICATIONS
The petroleum industry has been implementing remote control centres for over ten years, mainly driven
by safety and cost concerns of having more people than necessary based on off-shore platforms.
Remote management of onshore facilities has been commonplace in the industry for much longer. The

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C T FARRELLY and L R RECORDS

increasing need for deepwater submersible facilities has also forced that industry to invest heavily in
remote operations. This industry represents the best potential starting point for a mine site ROC, mainly
because of the similarity in operating and maintenance practices, including being served by a number
of common software vendors.
The petroleum industry been able to leverage experience gained by the use of collaborative
visualisation environments for subsurface interpretation for oil and gas exploration. It is now
commonplace to bring multidisciplinary teams together for the interpretation of 3D seismic surveys,
together with downhole petrophysical data, leading to interactive drill-path planning.
In an industry used to handling terabytes of data, there have been even further increases in the
volumes of data derived from new technologies for directional drilling and in-hole measurement, as
well as the increasing use of 4D seismic, where permanent seafloor geophones monitor changes in
reservoir characteristics during production. The common use of an ‘umbilical’ to bring power and
chemicals to offshore rigs also allows for the widespread use of fibre optic cables to support the
necessary data transmission.
Most petroleum companies have major initiatives underway to implement ROCs as part of a broader
vision to create the ‘Digital Oilfield of the Future’. These initiatives come under various guises, including
‘Real Time Enterprise’, ‘Intelligent Energy’, ‘SmartFields’, ‘iFields’ and ‘e-Fields’. As a measure of the
widespread interest in these initiatives in the petroleum industry, a review of the papers available in the
online library of the Society of Petroleum Engineers (www.SEG.org) reveals that there have been over
110 papers published in the last two years on the topics of improved real-time data collection and
analysis, ROCs and digital oilfields. The ROC concept is core to these initiatives (Figure 2).

Display Display Display

Display Display Management

Computation Control
Historian
Third Party
Monitoring Storage Computation
Storage
Facilities
Operator Assistant
Onshore ROC
Telecommunications Facility

Platform/ Sensors Telecommunications

Well Site/ Weather
Controls Supervisory Control
Field
Off take Data Acquisition

Offshore Security
Platform
Processing Controls Controls

Wellhead Sensors Sensors

Completion Sensors Sensors

Bottom Hole Sensors Sensors

Well #1 Well #N

FIG 2 - Remote operations centre concept in petroleum industry. Source: Records and Farrelly (2007).

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The use of volume visualisation has increased the interpreter’s bandwidth 100 000 fold
in ten years. Not only does this allow massive amounts of data to be analysed in a
fraction of the time it previously took, but it brings these tools into the
Real-Time-Reservoir-Monitoring (SmartField) domain because it processes data so fast
in real time. (Bartling et al, 2004.)
The petroleum companies have for some time been investing in modern visualisation and
videoconference rooms with advanced projector systems to allow teams in multiple locations interact
with the same data. These are now being built alongside ROCs, so that the petroleum engineers and
geoscientists are in close proximity to the operations management staff. At particularly critical decision
points, the teams can interact together with the data, including bringing other experts into the virtual
discussion, to resolve production issues or make short-term planning decisions. The initial paybacks
have been impressive (measured in $100 Ms) and so most companies are expanding their efforts.
The damages from Hurricanes Katrina and Rita in 2005 have also created an imperative for
implementing ROCs for offshore rigs and platforms. Over 50 production platforms and 20 drilling rigs
were extensively damaged and in some cases completely lost. This has led to increased collection of
environmental, climate and platform structural integrity data. There is also an increasing awareness of
operational risk due to global terrorism. A number of remote collaborative environments are being built
just for crisis management, as they are seen as a good way of managing a crisis by providing all
stakeholders with appropriate and timely information. That is, operational ROCs can route data feeds to
and from emergency/crisis management teams both at the operating company and the civil and/or
military authorities.
In addition to the collaborative environments for exploration and crisis management, ROCs for
managing production platforms are aimed at the following benefits:
• faster and better decisions, for example improved precision of drill hole paths;
• reduce off-shore staffing levels, while retaining skills for optimal control;
• operate safely without damaging the environment;
• optimise extraction using richer data sources and improved reservoir modelling;
• improve forecasting of production and depletion, hence better field management;
• more refined measurement and control to minimise production interruptions;
• minimise platform downtime, including faster maintenance turnarounds;
• better use of existing global expertise, including access to specialist expertise in service companies;
• collating and sharing intelligence to identify and address external hazards early;
• accelerate development from discovery to first oil;
• lower training cost, through increased use of standard practices and remote training; and
• lower costs of operating, including lower labour costs and lower travel costs.
As an example of the resource extraction benefits, Reddick (2006) states that BP believes their
‘Field of the Future’ program can potentially add one billion barrels of additional reserves, increasing
their current proved reserves by about five per cent. In another example, the Shell Smart Fields
initiative claims an expected five per cent increase in recovery for gas, a ten per cent increase in
recovery for oil and a ten per cent increase in production rates (Van den Berg, 2007). In addition, there

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C T FARRELLY and L R RECORDS

are significant cost reduction benefits; for example, the petroleum industry often refers to a 3:1 ratio in
the cost of an off-shore worker versus the cost of the same worker if they were located on-shore.
The issue, however, that is likely to drive the implementation of ROCs more than anything else is
that experienced people are leaving the petroleum industry much faster than are being replaced. Baby
boomers are retiring and a younger generation not being attracted to an off-shore lifestyle. The industry
calls this the challenge of the ‘big crew change’. While the economic and reputation benefits of ROCs
are compelling in their own right, the lack of experienced personal is likely to make them mandatory for
major new developments.

DEFENCE APPLICATIONS
In the military there has been a significant change in approach in the use of real-time information to
support the entire field of operations. Remote sensors deployed in land, sea, air and space have
increased the amount of information collected, while improvements in voice and data communications
have led to an upgrade in the degree of sharing and interpretation of the information collected.
While the increased information, communication and coordination has allowed the backroom
commanders more opportunity to control the forces under their command, the typical enemy
engagement has become much more complex, leading to an increased need to allow commanders in the
field more flexibility. The complexity has been increased due to several factors, including: more
restricted physical terrain (urban areas, remote mountains, jungles); complex human interactions
(tribes, clans, religious sects, ideological movements); more lethal weapons (roadside bombs, precision
guided mobile rockets, armour piercing rifles); complex adversaries (militias, terrorists, bandits,
mercenaries) and a complex information environment (common access to information, news media,
mobile communications).
The response of the western armed forces has been to change the way in which they collect, analyse,
disseminate and act on information. The training of individual soldiers for versatility and agility has
reached levels that were once the domain of special forces. Even more importantly, as described by
Kilcullen (2004), ‘it requires a command culture and a tactical decision-making approach that allows
commanders to operate effectively in ambiguous, rapidly changing, chaotic situations’.
This revolution in the use of IT to support the military comes under the banner of ‘network centric
warfare’ (NCW), or other similar terms such as ‘net-centric operations’ or ‘network based defence’.
The NCW approach has been promoted since 1998 and has been put into action in recent engagements
in the Middle East. As outlined by the US Department of Defense (2003), the basic tenets of NCW are:
A robustly networked force improves information sharing and collaboration, which
enhances the quality of information and shared situational awareness. This enables
further collaboration and self-synchronisation and improves sustainability and speed of
command, which ultimately result in dramatically increased mission effectiveness.
The basic components of NCW are described as:
• sensor grid – collects intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR) information;
• command and control (C2) grid – uses the information collected for assessment, synthesis with
other information, collaborative planning and decision-making;
• engagement grid – uses the decisions made to direct military action; and
• information grid – connects the other three grids together.

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The sensor grid includes an array of mobile technologies deployed as individual units or as part of
every mobile platform – soldier, vehicle, airborne drones, other aircraft, satellites, and ships. These are
being interconnected using various secure communications technologies of increasing bandwidth to
handle voice, data, images and video. As an example, the war in Iraq has seen the use of over 1000
unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), including the Hunter UAV, which can loiter for 12 hours, provide
visible and infrared images and video, and can be used for laser precision guidance. There is an overall
increased use of battlefield robots of all types, leading to more and more of the tactical operations being
conducted in the ROC.
The C2 grid is essentially the ROC for the military, and it includes the continuous connection of all
levels of command. A key outcome of the initial applications of NCW is that there needs to be a
separation of command and control. The overall command of an operation can be maintained remotely
in ROCs, whereas the actual control of ground forces needs to be in the hands of on-scene commanders,
even though they will also be running their command remotely. Individual soldiers need to be trained to
react to situations and take action with very short decision loops. The need for quality voice
communications has also proven to be critical both for interpretation of the increased intelligence and
for coordinated actions.
The development of ROCs in the military evolved from earlier models of managing a battle using
both a strategic command (as in the classic ‘War Room’) and tactical command (as in the ‘Field
Command HQ’). There is still a need for a separation of strategic and tactical decisions, but the pace of
modern conflicts requires simultaneous collation, interpretation and decision making using a common
information base. The implications of a more collaborative information and decision making
environment are still being determined through the development of appropriate military doctrine,
including frameworks to better define how information is collected, shared and used (Figure 3).

NCO Conceptual Framework

Information Value Added
Sources Services Force C2 Effectors

Quality of Organic Quality of Networking

Information Degree of Networking Net Readiness of Nodes

Degree of Information ‘Share-ability’

Quality of Individual Information Degree of Shared Information

Quality of Individual Sensemaking Quality Degree of Shared Sensemaking

Individual Awareness of Shared Awareness
Inter-
Individual Understanding actions Shared Understanding

Individual Decisions Collaborative Decisions

ty
Degree of Decision Synchronisation
gili
A
C2
Degree of Actions/Entities Synchronised
ty
ili
Ag
e
rc

Degree of Effectiveness
Fo

FIG 3 - Network centric operations conceptual framework. Source: US Department of Defense (2003).

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C T FARRELLY and L R RECORDS

While the ‘fog or war’ is gradually being lifted, the increasingly difficult combat situations demand
a more refined and rapid information management environment. In a case study summarised by
Murphy and Groh (2006), the US Army War College has highlighted the following advantages:
• Increased connectivity and the flow of information provided freedom to command regardless of
location.
• On the whole, commanders made better decisions quicker and with more confidence because of the
information they had readily available to them.
• Information systems and the ‘richness’ they provided changed the way senior support staff
functioned – less time was spent gathering data, more time on analysis and synthesis and more time
supporting decision execution.
• Voice communications were the primary means of gaining situational understanding and ensuring
unity of command and/or effort at all levels.
• Increased situational awareness had a significant positive impact on risk taking. Risks and incorrect
actions could be detected earlier and prevented or mitigated.

AEROSPACE APPLICATIONS
The aerospace industry is characterised by the use of highly engineered and sophisticated machinery
that largely operates remotely from any operations management and maintenance services. In addition,
the risks involved in poor operation or maintenance have dramatic consequences, not only for human
safety, but also for reputation, which is closely linked to the bottom line.
Satellites and space stations sometime need direct human intervention, but most of the day to day
operations are monitored and managed in ROCs on earth. This has been the case since the earliest days
of the space race, and Houston Mission Control is the image most people have of an aerospace ROC. In
the commercial aviation business, it is now common practice for maintenance centres to remotely
monitor the performance of the aircraft. For satellite operations, ROCs have always been a necessity, so
it is not surprising that some of the advances in remote management have come from aerospace.
Satellites are designed to stay working for as long as possible without any direct physical human
intervention, so in addition to the payload instrumentation, the satellites include a complex array of
self-sensor and control devices, with redundancy and self healing capability. However, given the time
it takes to develop the equipment, make it space-ready and then launch it, the on-board systems are
often many years out-of-date as soon as they reach orbit. The systems back on earth however can be
continually upgraded to make the best use of the information collected.
A single satellite will typically be managed by a single ROC, operating 24 × 7 with a total staff of
anywhere from six to 16 people. It is only when the satellite is passing over the main receiver station
that any significant data can be transferred back and forth. These real-time contacts are called ‘passes’
and they need to be carefully scheduled as they are highly time constrained. Since the satellites are
usually over-engineered for reliability, they often stay in place long beyond their mission target. The
ongoing management of an aging satellite fleet not only increases operating costs, but is increasingly
difficult to provide due to a shortage of expertise.
To overcome these issues NASA has implemented a number of expert systems to manage many
aspects of a satellite operation (Luczak, 2000), including:
• Automated Mission Operations System (AMOS) – to provide reliable, unattended, and lights-out
operations, by handling routine problems, and calling in remote operators only when they are

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needed. Lights-out means that the last operator leaves and turns out the lights, leaving an automated
system to control operations in the absence of human operators. Two expert systems were
implemented to carry out two separate operations functions, using rule-based reasoning for status
monitoring and task-based reasoning for command and control. These systems share conclusions
with each other using real-time middleware in essentially the same way as the two human operators
did previously. The resulting system avoids human errors in repetitive activities and leads to a much
lower operating cost.
• Mission Operations Planning and Scheduling System (MOPSS) – to dynamically plan,
schedule, and create the commands needed to control complex scientific satellites and their science
instruments. Components include an expert system to automate mission operations and a dynamic
scheduler. Rule-based analytic models are used to automatically generate commands and schedule
activities in response to environmental triggers such as flight dynamics data, scheduled events and
operator input.
The systems become even more sophisticated for the management of semi-autonomous robots on
Mars and for interplanetary and deep space probes. The time-lag involved in the cycle of sensing and
control means that remotely operated units are not feasible without a large component of autonomous
action.
While the equipment used in aerospace is highly specialised and does not directly relate to mining
(the exception being remote sensing for exploration), there are many lessons in the way information for
managing the equipment can be collected, processed, synthesised and used for optimal management
with a minimum of staff.
The mining industry can learn a lot from the range of smart systems implemented in aerospace and
other industries (Table 1). A key aspect of these smart systems is the ability to encode best practice
knowledge in a way that optimises the use of the existing pool of experts.

TABLE 1
Smart technologies based on key attributes – source Doom (2001).

Attribute Description Key technologies

Sensing Bringing awareness to everyday things Sensors, embedded systems, smart environments,
smart materials, cameras
Adapting Modifying behaviour to fit the environment Adaptive networks, Jini, GPS, directory services,
collaborative filtering, humanised interfaces,
self-healing systems
Inferring Drawing conclusions from rules and observations Expert systems, knowledge bases, inference engines,
fuzzy logic
Learning Using experience to improve performance Case based reasoning, neural nets, genetic
programming, intelligent agents
Anticipating Thinking and reasoning about what to do next Self-organising systems, goal-directed systems,
scenario builders, robots, HAL9000

LESSONS LEARNT
The lessons learnt from the petroleum, defence and aerospace industries are consistent in regards to a
successful implementation of ROC and the related automation of operations. At a high level, there are
really only two lessons: designing the appropriate solution and enabling the change.

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C T FARRELLY and L R RECORDS

Designing the appropriate solution

A common theme from the industries studied is that for ROCs to be successful it is necessary to
incorporate and integrate a number of emerging technologies. The technology components are relatively
available; it is the integration of the systems that is important. Interoperability and integration are enabled
by the use of modular systems, open architectures, commercial-off-the-shelf (COTS) packages and the
best integration technologies. This is a particularly significant lesson given that the industries studied
have traditionally used bespoke systems and specialised vendors with proprietary systems.
The increased interconnectivity also means an increased risk of security breaches, since the security
of the network is only as good as the weakest link. Viruses and malicious attack can impact an
organisation down to the process control systems level.
The enabling technologies need to be packaged in a way that can be most usefully applied, with the
ROC design being based on critical components that are a subset of all the available technologies.
These key enabling technologies are summarised in Figure 4 as a high level architecture for ROCs.

Operations Maintenance Production Strategic

Control Management Planning Decisions

Digital Dashboards & Virtual Collaboration Environment

Delivering and interrogating people, process, information to optimise the entire business

Business Process Management and Integration

Creating visibility and control across multiple business processes including beyond the enterprise

Enterprise Business Applications

Enterprise applications to enable cross business processes and change programs

Core Business Applications

Technical applications to enable key functional processes and data management

Real Time Advanced Communications and Networks

Connecting data streams in diverse geographical and remote locations

Intelligent Predictive Virtual Teaming &

Advanced
Data Interpretation Collaborative
Data Collection
Aggregation Systems Decisions
Advanced sensors, Intelligent agents support Intelligent systems Teams assess and
data collection and the collation and interpreting data to execute scenarios
transmission processing of raw data. optimise human through high end
platforms Shared storage of results. intervention visualisation & simulation

FIG 4 - Key technologies for remote operations centres. Source: CSC collaborative real-time enterprise framework
– Farrelly (2005).

The technology components, however, represent only a minority of the complete solution, as
summarised in the model in Figure 5. Every dimension needs to be addressed properly.
One of the keys to designing an effective ROC is to focus on the right set of people and process
combinations. The need for different levels of decision making mean there are at least three or four
different logical types of ROC to match three key business objectives for the effective management of
any operation. These objectives have been built into a design-operate-maintain framework by the ARC
advisory group (Snitkin, 2006), covering:

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 REMOTE OPERATIONS CENTRES — LESSONS FROM OTHER INDUSTRIES

Process: People:
• business need • empowered / available
driven / focussed Efficient Effective • innovative
• simple and flexible Processes People • connected to experts
• disciplined • supported in teams /
• widespread communities
• repeatable / • trained / capable /
improving knowledgeable
Enabling
Culture
Technology: Information:
• globally accessible • timely
• fit-for-purpose • visible / accessible
• easily used Right Valid • digestible / relevant
• reliable Technology Information • related / connected
• integrated • accurate / complete
• extendable • secure
• functional
Culture: Leadership, Cooperation, Commitment, Discipline
FIG 5 - Solution dimensions for remote operations centres. Source: Farrelly and Jones (2003).

• design – activities carried out by engineers and geoscientists in designing the mine and plant and in
planning the production,
• operate – activities carried out by operators in managing the mine and plant every day, and
• maintain – activities carried out by maintenance to keep equipment operating optimally.
These three domains are overseen by another layer for strategy, which covers the high level
planning for managing the operating business. The segmentation of business activities into these
domains is very important for designing how an ROC, or group of ROCs, will operate. In the petroleum
industry, leading practice is to implement separate ROCs, even when they are in the same location. The
separation of the domains is shown in Figure 6. The pyramid is an illustration of the way data and
information is consolidated up through the layers and how control is filtered back down (ie fewer large
decisions down to many small decisions).

Decision Levels /
Data Consolidation Volume Complexity Timing Planning
Low High Years Long term
Strategy
Breadth

Scope

Design
Frequency
Depth

Maintain

Operate High Low Sub- Short

seconds term
FIG 6 - Levels of abstraction for optimum operations planning and management. Source: Farrelly (1999).

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C T FARRELLY and L R RECORDS

Enabling the change

Most of the adopters of ROCs and related automation state that by far the biggest challenges are with
organisational change, firstly with attaining stakeholder commitment for implementation and secondly
with the behaviour changes necessary for successful operation. These are largely embodied in the
culture and people dimensions in the model in Figure 5.
The business process changes necessary for successful ROCs involves a significant transformation
activity. This needs to begin with a clear and agreed strategy, developed through engagement with
executive stakeholders, followed by a compelling value proposition, communicated widely. One size
does not fit all, so vary the approach.
At all stages of the project, the operations staff should be actively involved. Even for a greenfield
development, getting the design right for the use by operations staff needs their direct input. It takes
time to simplify the solution to a level that is practical. The design should use the 80/20 rule (highest
value at least effort). It is very easy to generate too much data and information – it is much harder to
synthesise to the right level, but it must be done.
It is important to establish reasonable expectations on the time commitment needed in redesigning
and implementing new processes (Feineman, 2006). It is also necessary to incorporate the best
available business and technical knowhow, including the involvement of vendors and service
companies at an early stage, since they often specialise in the implementation and management of new
technology. Where possible, don’t re-invent the wheel – proven capabilities are available by partnering
with the right organisations.
It is important to not have the project driven by the IT department nor be viewed as an IT project.
The new technology components necessitate a close involvement with IT, but a business process and
organisational change cannot be driven by IT. This is the most common cause of failure for major IT
enabled business transformation projects.
Choose the pilot site as the one that:
1. has the most to gain from an ROC; and
2. has the most collaborative culture, ie no strong functional silos to break down first.
For the design and implementation, program management and control are big challenges.
Experienced partners can help avoid pitfalls and accelerate progress.
Automation means that manual jobs are giving way to more skilled jobs in systems engineering, IT,
workflow management and logistics. This is certainly the case for the people who design and staff the
ROC, but it also applies to the staff at the operations. For improved collaboration it is necessary for it to
work at both ends. One-on-one training should be done to lift competence in technology and practices
to above a defined baseline, and use just-in-time training for new solution components.
Developing an agile and collaborative culture is by far the hardest hurdle for most organisations.
This may be a passing phase, since the newer generation is much more willing to adopt new technology
and work in a virtual connected world. Bartling (2006) describes how the future has already arrived for
Generation Y and the Internet culture, as per the following:
• playing now in their bedrooms – fast processing, big memory, extraordinary graphics;
• usage skills in managing technologies – incredible richness of media from streaming video to
multi-media to webcams;
• multi-tasking a way of life – a microsecond is a long time to wait;
• virtual networks of friends and study pals – expert at online collaborative interactions;

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 REMOTE OPERATIONS CENTRES — LESSONS FROM OTHER INDUSTRIES

• knowledge is ‘free’ – ‘Google’ the world and discover anything on your own;
• active in user groups of people they have never met (blogs, wiki, open source);
• business is global, national identities are transparent and cultural and political borders are breached;
• the world is small – everything is connected – it’s easy to move between realities;
• a new view of the workday and workplace – wherever you are, whenever you need to and with
whomever you want to; and
• involved, engaged, enthralled, excited – it’s become cool to be a nerd.
While over time this may cover the necessary skills and interest in using the technology, the
fundamental cultural change aspects around business processes and collaborative behaviours need to
be explicitly defined and built into the change plan. The four domains discussed in the previous section
(strategy, design, maintain and operate) need to be separately covered in terms of the cultural change
required. The fundamental differences in business culture were first described by Schein (1996), and
are illustrated in Figure 7, with an extension to add the ‘maintainer culture’ in recognition of the
importance of this aspect in an ROC context and to align it with the four domains.

Strategy
Design • financial focus
• solution focus • performance vital
• correctness important • organisational control
• functional view • global view
• optimistic about solutions • embattled lone hero
• linear, quantitative
Executive • standard processes
• professional standards Culture • abstract view
• machine view

Engineer Maintainer
Culture Culture

Operate Operator
Maintain
• people focus Culture • equipment focus
• interdependence vital and • availability vital
complex • local view
• local view • globally connected
• pessimistic about solutions • fixing solutions
• working team • standard processes
• organic view • process view

FIG 7 - Four distinct cultures of management for an operating asset. Adapted from Schein (1996).

CONCLUSIONS
Remote operations centres (ROCs) that are in common practice in the petroleum, defence and
aerospace industries can be adapted for the mining industry. Outcomes from implementing ROCs in
these industries include:
• more activities are conducted remotely, so fewer personnel are exposed to hazards;
• greater visibility of entire operations to a wider audience, including off-site specialists, leading to
faster and better reaction to tactical production issues and emergency situations;

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C T FARRELLY and L R RECORDS

• increased depth and breadth of information, analysed in an integrated and timely manner, leading to
more efficient operations, such as through the detection of equipment degradation before it impacts
production;
• optimised production through more timely and accurate operational information delivered to all
levels of planning and operations, regardless of location;
• more informed strategic decisions based on improved business processes that deliver the right
information to the right people in the right time, with the ability to collaborate more widely; and
• all this leading to higher production at lower cost and lower operational risk.
There are emerging four key types of ROC:
• strategy – for remote performance assessment and enterprise planning,
• design – for remote design and production planning,
• maintain – for remote maintenance trouble shooting and reliability planning, and
• operate – for remote operations monitoring and control.
There are a number of technology enablers that bring the implementation of ROCs within the reach of
any significant mining operation. These enablers include new intelligent sensors, real-time data collection
and management, advanced data and application integration, expert systems for alarm management and
escalation, robust communications networks within and between sites, linked geospatial and document
management systems, and collaboration rooms with both video and data feeds.
There are also some significant challenges to designing and implementing a successful ROC
strategy, including:
• implementing and integrating several emerging technologies – while at the same time avoiding
jumping to ‘solution mode’ too early and so not architecting properly;
• ensuring that the solution addresses all the relevant aspects of people, process, information and
technology – and in particular not being technology led through the design and engagement process;
• building and selling the compelling value proposition at all levels of the business;
• addressing the business process and behavioural changes necessary for a more collaborative
operational environment to work; and
• engaging all relevant stakeholders in the transformational program through active participation.
The mining industry does not need to break new ground to implement significant improvements in
the remote management of operations. The lessons already exist for designing, developing,
implementing and running ROCs. It just needs a willingness to learn from other industries and to
partner with vendors and service providers who already have the experience.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
This research compilation was funded by the CSC Natural Resources Center of Excellence. The
authors would also like to acknowledge the contributions of numerous colleagues in CSC and partner
organisations who have contributed ideas to this body of work.

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