Page 34 - EngineerIt March 2021

INDUSTRY, TECHNOLOGY AND INNOVATION

Automation to positively disrupt mining

By Clinton Scott, managing director at TechSoft International

ining is a complex industry that must balance worker safety, environmental concerns and
Msustainability with overcoming the challenges of siloed operations and increasing system
complexity, thanks to evolving technology. This is where connecting assets more intelligently can
help contextualise decision-making and bring improvements across operations.
Of course, data analytics is hardly a new concept for mines, but when combined with the high-
performance computing capabilities of cloud systems, more reliable access due to the growth of 5G,
and the connective power of the internet, it becomes a powerful disruptive force.
Mines are no strangers to the Internet of Things and the need to have remote connected sensors
feed mission-critical data into operational rooms for safety and operational efficiency. But now they
can incorporate machine learning and artificial intelligence to inject sophisticated algorithms into the
process that automates much of the ‘grunt’ analysis work at exponentially faster rates than human
resources can ever do.
Even though disparate data is a concern for any industry, in mines it can mean the difference
between life and death when it comes to worker safety. Automation can therefore positively
enhance operations by cleaning up the messy data, whether this is from scans of hard copy Clinton Scott
documents or different types of data sets kept by different departments. By creating business value
from automated processes using machine learning and artificial intelligence, mines can collate Having such continually adapting
and contextualise data from unstructured sources faster, and optimise the information to derive systems means automation becomes adept
improved insights. in identifying and flagging issues proactively
More than that, decision makers get complete visibility on current process performance based across multiple locations and assets. Artificial
on real operational data from system logs. This provides the foundation required for accurate intelligence systems start developing capacity
analysis and diagnosis of process issues. Furthermore, mines can use this automation to help to predict outcomes based on frequency and
identify non-compliance. They can use transactional data to analyse the steps required to complete severity. Mines are entering a digital new world
a process, check compliance and discover bottlenecks in the system. Automation can also identify that will be radically enhanced by automated
employee patterns, behaviours and barriers to productivity. systems helping to drive decision making. n

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