Covid-19 fast-tracks mine digitalisation

The Covid-19 pandemic has led to a reduction in the number of people working within a specific mining area, yet still required to achieve the same output. This has brought mine digitalisation to the fore, where it is now seen as a central efficiency mechanism that is essential for survival.

Sandvik Mining & Rock Technology asserts that its experience in this field makes it ideally positioned to implement digital strategies for the mining sector. 

“Most mining companies have for years been working to digitalise their operations, but the difficulty is to know exactly what this process is meant to achieve, and where managers want their mines to be in the future,” explains Sandvik. “Bringing in new technologies means fundamentally changing the way your operation runs, so you need to be ready for the change management that this will require.”

The company contends that digitalisation allows the whole underground mining operation to be visualised and managed from an operational management centre, giving management an overall view of all operations in real time and the ability to optimise various processes.

The company emphasises that digital solutions are not just for managers but are also important for people on the ground to run operations more effectively and efficiently and that there needs to be full buy-in from the start if the intended efficiencies are to be realised in practice.

Digital tools can be used to help mines achieve key performance indicators and optimise operations. Sandvik sites the example of a reduced workforce owing to Covid-19 restrictions and how digital tools can be appropriately used to address this challenge.

Sandvik Mining & Rock Technology highlights its core focus in digitalisation as change management, based on short interval control, process management and optimisation, through its Optimine product.

The company offers five different modules within OptiMine, depending on digital requirements, with further digital solutions also available, relating to aspects including telemetry of non-Sandvik equipment, face utilisation, ventilation monitoring, personnel tracking and ventilation-on-demand through its Newtrax platform. Sandvik’s OptiMine has been installed at about 66 sites worldwide.

In addition, the company emphasises that its inter-operability policy commits it to working with any other type of information system that a customer has on site, in order to achieve the effective transfer of data between systems, to make it more useful for the customer.