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The mining industry is at an interesting stage in terms of digitalization. 

T here are 3 main schools of thought each with its own reasons why it is done:

1.  The non-believers 

Mining has always been very slow when it comes to digital transformation. This is due to the philosophy that “ moving dirt” can’t be that hard to do. Every cent spent on non-essential mining is a cent taken away from production or exploration. I have seen this numerous times on the mining software side. You get times where an operation will spend R20k on software and expect wonders from the users. This results in lack of efficiency frustration and more. Eventually it leads to not believing that digital will assist their operations. One large mining company recently stopped all digitalization because of lack of progress.

The big problem with believing in digital is the concept of “if it ain't broke then don’t fix it”. This has a lot to do with legacy thinking. Legacy thinking believes that we did it like this 10 years ago and it worked, so why change. What happens is that the markets became more volatile and getting every ounce of productivity is all that counted. Productivity was seen as something tangible. If the truck operated for 89% then that is money well spent. A system used by a Mine Planning engineer was not tangible. The mining industry believes in tangibles. If it can’t be seen, it does not exists. Smaller operations feel like they can get away with it due to the relative value comparisons but is it really worth it?

1.  The half-hearted 

Most modern companies realize the need for some form of digitalization. They do it because their peers do it and it also creates a nice marketing opportunity. I think that that this is the case with the majority of middle to upper tier mining companies. They sense there is some benefit to going digital but unsure about what the benefit will be. This does bring me to a second main point of how some companies operate. The modern tendency is to remove accountability. This bring some benefits like de-risking certain parts of this business The general case is to throw money at an area, write really long winded contracts and expect the problem to go away. Along the way you do get systems installed but the efficiency is really questionable.

What happens is that your will find many implementations across multiple silos but nothing talks to each other. The plant manager has a budget for robotics to improve their asset lab. What happens to the data? It is silo’d and not usable anywhere else. The technical services department has new state of the art modelling software but it can’t talk to the planning department. What you end up with is a shortage of data integrity. Data flows are disrupted by various people, roles and functions. It becomes very much a Chinese Whisper. What starts out from the department is not the same as what is provided at the destination.

The biggest problem with half arsed implementation is the reconciliation part of mining. The resource starts out with 100 “ounces” (Lack of better term for quantity) at a say, 5% grade. Through planning, blasting, crushing, milling and final concentrate you end up with 80% of those ounces at a 4% grade. You now have to explain away the missing grades and tonnes. Mining, technical services and Plant fight about this all the time. Without real proof who is in the wrong, the fight will continue to end of days. The operation becomes inefficient, people become irritated and they leave and the cycle of turnover continues. The biggest loser in all of this is the reputation of the mining company. They promise a certain grade and certain tonnage in their offset agreements to the market. If they don’t deliver their reputation is shot. There are many other items like impurities and penalties and more that make the delivery of a product extremely complex.

This, in my honest opinion is due the lack of connected system across the various business vertices. Mining does not mine to plan. Geology is wrong with their grades. Plant is not getting their recoveries. Financials are over/under spending. What was planned ultimately is not what the final product is. Digitalization is about ultimately improving prediction models through proactive technology and methods.

3.  The pioneers 

In every business there will be the pioneers that take the plunge completely. They are the guys that show anything is possible and prove the real value. The Amazons, Teslas, IBMs of the world. They understand where the future is headed. As in any of these above mining houses are also know for relying on a few mines to go all out. The examples of such mining operations that are going full digital are:

Chelopech Mine in Bulgaria

For many years Chelopech was and still is at the forefront of what is possible. The company, Dundee Precious Metals, enrolled the services of a software company MineRP to install and upgrade their technical systems to improve visibility across the operation. The Chelopech operation is an underground operation and getting visibility is key to understanding performance. The visibility provided by knowing what is happening at the “coal face” allows them to predict what the final product will be. This allows for unparalleled visibility. With partnerships with equipment manufacturers, they can now group all this information together and single live dashboards. Visibility and prediction are the main benefits.

South 32 –Australia

 South 32 is taking a different route to digitalization. They are interested in their live asset information. South32 is an open pit operation. This comes with different opportunities to underground operations mentioned above. South 32 makes use of automated drone technology as well as terrestrial laser technology to update their mining models every hour, and even minutes if required. This allows the mining team to accurately measure mining performance against plan and adjust targets to counter any potential short comings. The mining survey environment is an integral part of the data collection process. There are many ways to collect data including, Theodolite, GPS, Laser Scanning, Drones and Radar. Each of these technologies have their own output. Linking all these data sets together in to a coherent dataset is always a challenge.

This is where South 32 is ahead of the pack. They have real time visibility which helps to improve prediction including pre and post blast analysis, resource to operation conversion and accurate asset tracking capabilities. (Stockpile and other material inventories)

Finsch Diamond Mine – Northern Cape

The Finsch diamond mine in the Northern Cape is striving to become the most advanced underground mines in South Africa and probably globally. The diamond mine is a massive underground deposit around a deep open ended kimberlite pipe. The challenges increase when mining at depth. Originally the mine was open pit until it was economically not viable anymore. This then required a rethink of how the orebody could be mined. This allowed for an underground operation to be established. Mining at depth’s main challenge is that of connectivity and visibility. These are the two items that the operation succeeded in overcoming.

Connectivity was by installing communication systems throughout the operation. Kilometer of cables, repeaters and routers allows for constant connectivity. Visibility was required in order to track equipment. Partnering with Sandvik, they managed to get real time production information from potentially anywhere in the world. You can ping a dozer operator, communicate directly with him/her and also check the status and statistics related to performance. Getting data like this opened up many new way of tracking an operation:

·        Getting information related to plan vs actual performance

·        Getting information on where every single person is underground

·        Improving communication(Miners and operators have their own Tablet to use for communication)

·        Looking out for safety issues and addressing equipment breakdowns and sending information to support team

·        Live video feed of all mining areas like crushers, loading areas and haulages

·        Checking patterns related to fatigue, clock in times and team performance comparisons

Access to data like this allows for live prediction models and allows for superior planning. They are not just stopping at manufacturers but also incorporating the information with their technical systems for planning improvements.

Four Areas for connected systems

Mining is a very large and complex system. It is still a system with predefined rules. Within the system there are areas which will have a large impact on results and other areas which will have a minimal impact. Results are not just measured by actual physical tangible performance but also performance against a predefined plan. Visibility allows for constants adjustments against the planned outcome. It will even allow for early communication of potential issues that can be forewarned and allow stakeholders to, in turn, communicate the results to the market. So here are my areas for connected systems within mining:

·        Mining equipment: being able to constantly track information related to operations is invaluable. Equipment can be monitored real time for break downs, maintenance schedules and efficiency. Many equipment providers have their own output and getting access to this, is half the battle. This is also complicated when comparing owner mining vs contractor mining. Contractor mining teams will not share (want to share) their information for fear of babysitting and unwarranted scrutiny.

·        Mining technical systems: Mining technical systems for Geology, Mine Planning, Survey, drafting, ventilation and HSE is at the core of any good operation. This will plan, measure and adapt the physical environment. Technical systems should be seen as the link between the physical world and the planned world. Many forms of data generation occurs in this world. The data is shared with mining teams and processing teams alike. In operations where there is no collaboration and where silo’s exists, this is where the majority of problems can be found. They understand the operation better than anyone as they are constantly measuring every part thereof.

·        Non manned systems: The non-manned systems like crushers, conveyers, weighbridges and mills takes care of the movement of material. These systems have invaluable information related to quality of material, volume of material, particle sizes and other efficiencies related to densities and material types. Having this information will allow to reconcile against what was expected in the pit and also predict what the plant must adjust to cater to the information. Often this part of the process is overlooked. It is overlooked because the expectation from the operations is that x will be delivered by the mining team. The mining team might deliver x+1 and there are sometimes no way for processing to adjust which will lead to reduction in recoveries and ultimately loss of product. Many times product ends up on tailings facilities that could have bee salvaged otherwise, have the information been available sooner.

·        Processing systems: Many processing systems are extremely complex scientific environments. When looking at metallurgical extracting an optimal blend these systems will be run on a knife edge. A bit out of balance and the recoveries are not in line. Processing systems already operate with high tech systems. (Higher than the mining side). These system capture information related to pressures, sizes, temperatures, densities, quantities of material, particle size and is controlled through 24h manned station. System like SCADA will provide up to date feedback on results. The problem is that these systems works according to a recipe. The recipe is defined by what is expected to be fed to the plant from the mining team. If the material differs from what is expected, then it can have catastrophic effects on efficiency. Recipes can sometime take days to adjust in order to cater for changing mining conditions. Having access to information beforehand can reliably increase throughput as well as output.

·        Reconciliation: Recon is the end goal of mining and is the bane of many a professional. With so many system inputs, there is bound to be some confusion and uncertainty. The previously mentioned Mine Call Factor (MCF) deals with this. An operation will happily accept a MFC of 95%. This is 95% of what was expected to be deliver. This means that they are happy to throw away 5% of value. As mining is not cutting of cheese with simple variables, it is not as easy as that. Geological uncertainty is built in to registering a resources. Depending on the information available this can be as high as 10% uncertainty. With more information this decreases down to 5 and even 2%. I have seen operations run a 90% MCF and be satisfied due to operational constraints.

Technologies like AR, VR and digital twining of operations are now slowly starting to bring unparalleled visibility and transparency to the mining industry. Soon your CEO and COO can inspect and view data from the field while sipping on a skinny latte from the comfort of their office. It really is an exciting time for the industry. One that I am really happy to be a part of.

As can be seen from above. Mining struggles because of lack of data. Only with data can predictions be made. The mining industry is well set to undergo a major revolution when it comes to digitalization.

I would love to hear what your operation is doing in terms of digitalization. Feel free to comment below.

Until next time, happy mining.

~ Paul