The video, presented by Tata Consulting Engineers (TCE), outlines a digital point solution—DigitalPoint—designed to modernize coal inventory management for power plants and mining operations. It first explains the coal handling system, where coal arrives via rail, ship, conveyor or trucks, is stockpiled, and later reclaimed for consumption, with quantity measured by weigh scales and quality assessed manually in laboratories. The current approach suffers from several challenges: unaccounted losses (settling, windage, weathering, spontaneous combustion), inaccurate stockpile capacity calculations, and a 4‑6 hour delay in quality analysis, all of which hinder optimal reconciliation and can threaten plant continuity. TCE’s DigitalPoint addresses these issues by leveraging AI, machine learning, and data analytics to provide near‑real‑time monitoring of coal quantity and quality, inventory optimization for varying plant loads, decision support for selecting optimal coal blends, loss minimization, early fire/smolder detection, and volumetric stockpile estimation. The solution aims to improve reconciliation accuracy, reduce operational risk, and enhance economic performance.
Chapters
Tata Consulting Engineers, with decades of domain expertise in plant engineering, has leveraged artificial intelligence, machine learning, and data analytics to develop a digital point solution for coal inventory management. This innovative digital point solution can be used in power and mining sectors to monitor the quality and quantity of coal in near real-time, minimize the losses in coal storage, and ensure better reconciliation. This short video will be covering coal handling system, current approach and challenges, and features of the innovative DigitalPoint solution. Let's look at the coal handling system. Coal handling system is an integral part in mining as well as in power generation to handle various fuels such as coal, lignite, pet coke. These fuels are received in a plant through various modes of transport such as rail wagons, ships, long-distance conveyors, or by road trucks. The coal received at the plant is transported to the stockpile, and further it will be reclaimed and conveyed to the consumers on demand. For effective monitoring of coal quantity, weigh scales are mounted on conveyors. Sampling units are provided at selected locations, and the samples are tested manually at Coal Laboratories to analyze the quality. However, the operators are facing challenges in reconciling and managing the coal inventory optimally. Now let's look at the current approach and challenges. Normally, plant operators store coal in the stockpile for 15 to 30 days of plant operation to avoid shutdown due to coal shortage. Since the coal is being stored in stockpile for longer duration, the plant operators are facing the technical challenges such as difficulty in reconciliation due to unaccounted losses such as settling, windage losses, weathering, and spontaneous combustion, inaccurate method of calculating stockpile capacity, Further, the analysis of coal quality is carried out manually at present, and there is a delay of 4 to 6 hours to obtain the result. This may impact the coal consumption pattern. To address these challenges, TCE has developed an online tool which helps the plant operator to better reconcile and optimize the coal inventory. The major features of the Digital Point solution are: monitor the quantity and quality of coal across various points points of interest in near real-time. Optimize coal inventory based on varying plant loads. Aids the operator to choose the best coal or blend ratio considering the plant performance and economics. Minimize the losses in coal stockyard. Provision for early detection of fire or smoldering in stockpile. Provision for volumetric estimation of coal stockpile. Tadic Consulting Engineers, your trusted partner for digital solutions. Stay tuned to this space to know more about our upcoming digital point solutions.
