The Innovators: Diavik project wins technology award

Diavik Diamond project wins technology award

Emerson Process Management has won Start magazine's Technology and Business Enabler (TBE) Award for helping Diavik Diamond Mines implement its advanced process automation technology. Zac Zacharias of Hatch Systems was responsible for the pre-installation tests.

Zac acted as owner's representative on the project, and accepted the award on behalf of Diavik.

Diavik was also honored with the TBE award for its "vision" in implementing the technology to solve a business problem.

Emerson's DeltaV system allowed Diavik to engineer, stage, test and simulate the process-automation system before it was shipped to the mine site.

"For Diavik, the savings over a coventional testing-after-commissioning program were estimated to be in excess of $750,000," says Zac.

By using DeltaV, the commissioning schedule was reduced by six weeks.