Tulasidas Inavolu was working in industries such as Pulp & Paper and Oil & Gas at ABB India when extraordinary circumstances led him to learn about mine hoists “from the ground up”. Today, one year into his new role as Applications Engineer at ABB Hoisting in Australia, Tulasidas is already locally renowned as a problem solver in underground mining, with a knack for bringing legacy systems up to speed, and for applying the latest version of ABB 800xA to new installs.
With job offers from ABB Canada and Sweden, Tulasidas and his young family might have been playing Lacrosse and eating poutine (potato chips topped with cheese curd and hot gravy); or winning at ice hockey and scoffing Swedish meatballs.
Instead they’re soaking in North Brisbane sunshine and cycling along the banks of Kedron Creek. His new colleagues and customers call Tulasidas “Das” because, he says, “In Australia you can only have a maximum of three letters.” He’s becoming conversant with the Australian way of communicating; and proficient in Australian mine safety regulations.
The move has been a win-win for Das and for hoisting clients like Evolution Mining’s Ernest Henry operation, BHP’s Olympic Dam project and Glencore’s Mount Isa Mines.
“Mount Isa Mines,” says Das, to give one example, “has a legacy hoist control system that had become obsolete in terms of ABB’s product life-cycle plan. But when I went there for another project, I helped them to solve a problem with their older hoist, because I’m familiar with those systems from my work in India.” Mt Isa Mines seized Das with both hands, and he’s been their primary contact for legacy control systems ever since.
The lure of hoist-system complexity
At Ernest Henry copper-gold mine near Cloncurry in Queensland, Evolution Mining gained full ownership of operations in 2023. Shortly afterwards, the ABB hoist maintenance system Compact HMI (CHMI) crashed. On his first visit to site Das formulated a plan to configure a new hardware and software system alternative to the crashed system. The customer, however, could not get a compatible machine. So Das recovered the crashed machine, restored image backup to a new, clean machine and later built a back-up server as a spare for future replacement. He says, “Troubleshooting and recovering crashed system was very challenging, but I managed to do it.”
The challenges and the complex nature of hoisting attracted Das to designing control systems for underground conveyances, like iron to a magnet.
He says, “People who have no experience of hoisting think it's like an elevator. But it has a lot of complexity: You need to understand the drives, the electrical systems, the hydraulic systems and the mechanical systems. You need to understand physics, the solution parameters and how much braking torque is required.” He elaborates: “If the lift is moving from one position to another it must travel at the right speed and apply the brakes gradually at each position. Not stopping can be catastrophic; stopping too fast can cause serious injuries. There are a lot of safety considerations and calculations.”
Das’s obsession with mine safety developed in tandem with his introduction to hoists, when he was thrown in the deep end of the mine shaft in 2018.
A project initiated in Sweden had been delivered to a mine in India, and the client requested that someone local come and help them with testing the system. ABB organised for a hoisting expert to attend from China, but Das’s managers knew he had extensive experience with other process industries and complex systems, so sent him to assist for a couple of days in the first instance. “The person from China was delayed and I was asked to stay on for another two weeks,” he recalls. “By the time the person from China arrived, I had started commissioning the system, and the company had developed confidence in me, so they requested that I stay.” He was there for three months and, with the help of another engineer, saw the hoist embedded in mine operations.
When COVID-19 hit and no-one was able to travel, ABB India again called on Das to support a local customer, in this case Hindustan Zinc Limited-Dariba Mines, to commission hoist control system, hoist monitor system and loading station as part of upgrade hoist project. He completed the commissioning himself and says, “It was a very, very valuable experience for me because it made me realize that we could develop a control solution specifically for the local market.”
A reliable low-cost solution for a constrained market
He became passionate about improving the reliability of underground mining in India, and understood that most mines could not afford the full suite of ABB hoist-control products. “I had ideas about how we could reduce the spend and maintain the utility.”
With the support of ABB Global, Das, initially as part of a team of three, developed ABB Ability NGXi Hoist Control. “The other two guys had to leave just after the project started, so I completed our ABB R&D Model Gate process myself, and released the product in April 2021. By the end of the year, we had three orders for that solution.”
ABB’s Model Gate process enables the use of a common framework and repeatable processes, to reduce software development times by efficiently reusing proven modules of code. “This means NGXi, is a new platform,” says Das, “but the background is similar to an existing solution from ABB Sweden.”
“The Indian mining market is just booming now, so strict guidelines have not yet been formalized by the Indian mining regulatory body,” says Das, “but we narrowed our focus on essential requirements for this market, and built in some crucial safety features.”
The three projects were supposed to be completed by December 2022, before Das moved to take up his new role in Australia, but delays on the customers’ side meant he could not begin commissioning of any of the projects on schedule. After joining the Australian hoisting team in February 2023, he returned to India in June 2023 for four weeks to commission the first project. The second project is set to be commissioned at the end of 2024, followed by the third project in Q1 2025.
Settling into Australia and finding community
Das names Australian mine safety standards as high on the list of things he appreciates about his new home. The support of the Australian hoisting team in helping his family settle in is also right up there.
Johan Engelbrecht, the recently retired mentor and Engineering Manager at ABB Hoisting in Australia, insisted on meeting the Inavolus at the airport, “I told him I had so much luggage I’d just get a big cab,” says Das, but Johan replied, “No problem. I'll come with my big Ford and I'll take you to your apartment.” He also advised Das on “where to look for a house, which were the good areas, and that was really helpful”.
Of course, Das still had to navigate Australia’s tight rental market. He recalls attending open houses with up to 30 other hopefuls, but ABB’s relocation agent helped him to negotiate on a shortlist of properties and he was soon happily housed. His sons, seven-year-old Mukund, and Rachit, five, love their new school, clamor to visit the beach and enjoy all the parks and play opportunities around their suburb.
Working as part of a team, with Business Leader, Aaron Trueman and new Engineering Manager Christo Malherbe, Das says he appreciates the regular schedule of Australian working life – which contrasts starkly with the “can’t say no” demands of being the one local hoisting go-to in India.
In June when ABB requested that Das return to India for a few weeks to commission one of the NGXi projects, he says, “Aaron asked if I’d be comfortable leaving my family so soon after arriving in Australia. I knew the family would be fine, because they’d already made friends in our area, but Aaron made sure that my wife, Divya, knew how to reach him if she needed anything.”
Elevating resource extraction
Back in Brisbane, Das is working on an 800xA upgrade to the hoist system at Glencore’s zinc, lead and silver producing complex, George Fisher Mine in Mt Isa. The existing hoist control systems were commissioned in 2017, and the Windows version they were using is now obsolete and unsupported by Microsoft.
“We have set up an office of four new servers for 10 clients, and will migrate to the updated system during a planned shutdown on October 14,” says Das. Subsequently, “If any operation crashes, or there’s a hardware failure, they can get the latest updates, and Microsoft support if they need it. Plus they’ll have greater security to protect their systems from hackers.”
Das is looking forward to his next assignment as project lead on an upgrade for Bluestone Mines’ Renison tin mine in Tasmania, which supplies around 3% of the world’s tin.
At Bluestone, ABB will replace a GE hoist commissioned in the 1990s with the latest hoist from ABB, but some elements of the existing setup, such as the motor control system will be retained. “This blend of equipment makes an interesting challenge, because it’s not all one-for-one replacement but requires integration of legacy components,” says Das. He adds, “We’ll do the maximum amount of work while the existing hoist is running, building the new ABB hoist beside it. This way we can really minimize shutdown time.”
Like other overseas-born engineers with experience in international markets, Das has found success and an enhanced work-life balance at ABB Australia. The support of colleagues, many of whom have also experienced relocation from other countries, sets the scene for diverse team inputs and innovative responses to local challenges. Adaptable, solutions-driven and with a taste for R&D, Das knows he’s an asset in this resource-rich country which also aspires to rebuild its manufacturing base – it’s a process-industries bonanza.
