These solutions learn from past actions through AI (specifically, machine learning) and can, therefore, improve their own decision-making processes. Process improvements can be higher mining productivity, higher mill throughput, decreased overall operating costs and higher flotation or leach recovery. One of the ways that the mining industry is improving … Today, however, most mines still have to take their first step toward virtual operations: replacing manual or automated cable readings with wireless monitoring systems. Digital twins can help with this: they are virtual replicas of physical assets, processes, and systems, which provide a representation of both the core elements and the dynamics of IoT devices used within the space or system depicted. This website uses its own and third party cookies to elaborate statistics about the use you make of the Website, show social buttons, and track your activity to suggest information of your interest. Increasing Productivity, Efficiency and Safety in Mining The global resources industry is a constantly evolving beast, and it is now entering a new age of technological development. We also use third-party cookies that help us analyze and understand how you use this website. Anglo American Plc, the UK-based miner of commodities such as nickel, coal and precious metals, for example, recently started using digital twins to optimize its mining fleet, including using applications to track the performance of haulage at its Los Bronces mining site in Chile, and at a 500-kilometer pipeline in Brazil. Able to operate below and above ground, autonomous vehicles are essential for the modern mine. They are especially useful for field maintenance and real-time machine inspection instructions, and improving operator-based care and safety – especially for underground mines. To address the challenge of productivity improvement, miners will need to make moves on two levels: 1. to achieve short-term gains 2. to set their operations on the right course for higher long-run productivity performance.On the first level, the way forward is clear. to visualize their behavior, aggregate this information and generate recommendations through the OI software, which are based on historical and real-time insights. These cookies do not store any personal information. Mining is … This website uses cookies to improve your experience while you navigate through the website. Autonomous vehicles are revolutionizing mining by allowing humans to communicate with and control machinery remotely. This paper aims to identify the various factors and problems affecting the productivity of underground coal mines adopting the bord and pillar method of mining and to propose suitable measures for improving … Autonomous mining vehicles have been around for nearly two decades now – Rio Tinto’s Pilbara iron mine introduced 80 driverless Komatsu trucks in 2008, massively increasing their mining productivity. For example, OI can facilitate the real-time monitoring of all of the mine’s many different assets to ensure efficiency and safety, or help teams to enhance the effectiveness of their communication methods, such as mobile apps and hand-held devices, in order to enhance productivity. OI is used when operators want to digitize parts of their operations in order to gather real-time insights and initiate data-based decision making in their organization. The increasing digitization of mines, involving not just the adoption of new technologies but also a switch to a more digital mindset within mining companies, improves the productivity, safety, and efficiency of mining operations in a whole host of ways. A major indicator of the industry’s reluctance to digitize is its continued use of manual and/or cabled readings instead of wireless systems connected to digitized mining assets. Durable, proven GPS components are needed for this type of system in order to withstand the often extreme environmental conditions. Operational Intelligence (OI) is key to creating digital twins of mines. Wearable technologies are an ideal tool for workforce-tracking in mines. Let's continue building a safer and more r…, Mining safety systems need to talk to each other so they can deliver the best possible performance. What is the way forward? To improve sector productivity, companies can: Refocus on high quality … An OI solution should be able to trigger alarms if parts of the operation show a certain level of anomaly and should also help operators to coordinate actions to increase productivity. If you want to know more or to change your cookie settings on your computer or device, please see our cookie policy. By closing this banner, or continuing to use this website, you consent to the use of cookies. Installing cables throughout a mine’s infrastructure, however, can be costly and, depending on the area, complicated and time-consuming. 2018 is a exciting year for the growing smart cities sector; with so many events happening worldwide, there are numerous opportunities to discover. With wireless monitoring mines can digitize assets and monitor their performance in real time. Many of the big mining players soon followed suit – such as BHP Billiton and Suncor – mainly buying from Caterpillar, Sandvik, Komatsu and Atlas Copco, who currently represent the most innovative and important players in the autonomous mining vehicles sector. The economic downturn has taught many mining companies salutary lessons about processes, capability and the need for rigour if recovery is ... How relevant to improving … Safety is paramount to mining operations, and good safety methods can lead to improved production. 1 The industry has shifted its focus to … They transmit real-time data to a gateway and can transfer information to a server based in a control tower up to 9 miles (15 km) away, allowing operators to remotely monitor critical assets. In the mining business, productivity is sometimes less space being … Yet output growth in mining in recent years has been weak at best, and multifactor productivity (MFP) has declined by 24 per cent between 2000-01 and 2006-07. Indeed, there remain a number of organizational barriers to innovative concepts like wireless readings, notably mining’s status as a traditional, risk and change-averse industry, which prevents investment in potentially “risky” technologies. Companies that pioneer a digital approach have a greater capacity to find and map mineral deposits, increasing accuracy and recoverability, for example, and are better able to manage their critical assets and workforce. If … We are going to look at the ways that the most innovative mines are using new technologies to get ahead of the game, showing you that adopting these technologies could make your mining operations safer, more productive and more cost-efficient. Productivity is the economic buzzword economists and politicians see as the way to keep industries in Australia growing and contributing to the wellbeing of the nation. They can also minimize safety problems – and future accidents – by restricting access to potentially dangerous areas in the mine. Operators are … Mines leveraging new technologies to enhance their productivity is nothing new. Chris Lo talks to Michael Beare of SRK Consulting to find out … Advances in wearable technologies make them an ideal tool for workforce-tracking in mines. If o…, From all of us to you, we wish you a Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays. As the mining industry experiences a transition in new minerals and markets, improving the productivity … Urbanization is one of the biggest global trends of our time and is showing no sign of slowing down. Process improvements can be higher mining productivity, higher mill throughput, decreased overall operating costs and higher flotation or leach recovery. Nowadays, the focus has shifted away from the original autonomous mining vehicles towards building the “autonomous mining system”, which can carry out tasks automatically or with minimal external control, and also towards the possibility of full automation through robotic technologies. Digital twins use AI (artificial intelligence), machine-learning (a subset of artificial intelligence) and software analytics with data to render real-time (otherwise known as “living”) digital simulation models that are continually updated as their real, physical counterparts, or “twins” change. Out of these cookies, the cookies that are categorized as necessary are stored on your browser as they are essential for the working of basic functionalities of the website. Timken developed a new spherical roller bearing cartridge featuring an enlarged inside diameter and changes in its metallurgical properties. This generates greater productivity as asset availability remains almost constant. When workers collect data and return to the office, the information they have gathered is already outdated: working with non-real-time information can have a critical impact on mining operations. This is significant when you take an industry-wide perspective: with the total operating cost of the oil, metal, and mineral extraction industries estimated to reach $1.4 trillion by 2025, cutting even a small percentage of these costs would be a huge boon for the mining sector. Utilizamos cookies propias y de terceros para elaborar estadísticas de uso del sitio web, mostrar botones de compartición de contenido en redes sociales y seguir su actividad para sugerir información de su interés. But the big, forward-looking players who are on the road to innovation only make up around 10% of the mining industry, meaning that the remaining 90% are still lagging behind. It is mandatory to procure user consent prior to running these cookies on your website. In mines, this translates into digitizing dynamic assets like workers, vehicles and critical assets (slopes, dams etc.) This allows the operator to accurately navigate the drill from blasthole to blasthole, maintain a desired shovel grade, or face position from a remote location. The right approach is to invest in the operation to maximize the use of the physical resource with the production … Mining companies worldwide largely lost sight of productivity goals that had underpinned operating discipline in the lean years of the 1980s and 1990s, when parts of the industry had set a healthy record in productivity im… Improved Connectivity Connectivity is crucial when looking to improve productivity as every part of the plant needs to work together. The surge in demand for metals and minerals in the early 2000s quickly translated into much higher prices and, with it, much increased miners’ profitability. Timken puts its products to work meeting the performance goals commonly shared by mine operators: maximize uptime, reduce maintenance and replacement costs as well as improve productivity. Coal miners working far below the earth’s surface have little time or space to deal with unscheduled breakdowns, especially with downtime costs amounting to $10,000-14,000 per hour. Puede obtener más información en nuestra política de cookies. Increasing productivity and cutting wasteful costs could help the mining industry when market conditions are tough. You can obtain more information reading our Cookies Policy. They can also be leveraged to identify where productivity can be increased, and to monitor staff time and attendance records. 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