Mine management and predictive maintenance are top priorities for miners

While miners are starting to trial and make small investments in technologies such as augmented reality (AR), virtual reality (VR) and cloud computing, the traditionally conservative mining sector remains focused on improving efficiency and productivity by continuing to invest in mine management software and predictive maintenance.

GlobalData’s latest report, Global Mine-Site Technology Adoption Survey 2018, reveals that while investment by the majors is currently well ahead of mid-tier miners and producing juniors, higher shares of the latter two groups are planning investments in mine management software and predictive maintenance given their immediate impact on improving productivity.

Source: GlobalData Mining Intelligence Center

The report includes data and analysis from the company’s survey of over 200 worldwide mine sites which investigated the extent to which mines had invested in 13 different technologies ranging from communication systems to drones, predictive maintenance, cloud computing, autonomous vehicles and wearables, as well as their investment intentions over the next two years.

Source: GlobalData Mining Intelligence Center

Mines remain very conservative in their investment choices sticking to those things that deliver an immediate return. After investments in predictive maintenance and mine management software, collision avoidance technology to improve safety has seen the next highest penetration. In contrast, less than 40% of miners have invested, even to a minor degree, in cloud computing, AR or VR.

This is positive news for software companies such as Dassault Systèmes, who offer a range of options under the Geovia brand, and Datamine, who together work with almost half of the mines surveyed. Other popular choices are Maptek, Deswik and RungePincockMinarco, which are collectively used by over 20% of the mines surveyed.

Amongst the other technologies investigated, whilst relatively few had yet invested in remote control vehicles, a reasonable share (35%) are planning to invest, either initially or as part of further investment, in this technology over the next two years. This will rank remote control vehicles in third place behind predictive maintenance (39%) and mine management software (48%).

To date investment in mine-site technology to date has been dominated by the majors, however the smaller miners are following suit in areas such as mine management software and predictive maintenance which allows them to increase productivity and run their complex operations as efficiently as possible.

The post Mine management and predictive maintenance are top priorities for miners appeared first on Mining Technology | Mining News and Views Updated Daily.



from Mining Technology | Mining News and Views Updated Daily https://ift.tt/2FKtAHZ

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Down with the kids: can mining ever be cool?

“Do you want to win a bucket load of cash? Of course you do!” is the eye-catching strapline of the Mining Association of Nova Scotia’s (MANS) annual Mining ROCKS! contest. It offers cash prizes totalling C$8,000 for junior high and high school students who produce the most interesting and engaging videos about mining across five categories. Held between October 2018 and 22 February 2019, the contest hopes to inspire young people to teach themselves about the mining industry in Canada and beyond. Sean Kirby, executive director of MANS, says the association launched the competition because the industry needs to do better at explaining itself to the public and, in particular, reaching out to young people to educate them about mining, minerals and geoscience. “We started the Mining ROCKS! video contest as a way to appeal to young people, to give them a reason to want to learn about what we do by doing their own research,” he says. Attracting the next generation of miners Ingratiating
Read more

GR Engineering wins OZ Minerals Northern Wellfield project contract

OZ Minerals has awarded a contract to GR Engineering Services for the design and construction of the Northern Wellfield for the Carrapateena project located approximately 160km north of Port Augusta in South Australia. The engineering, procurement and construction contract is valued at A$16.3m ($11.77m). For the Northern Wellfield project, GR Engineering will provide the detailed design, survey, supply, transportation, construction, testing and commissioning services for the development of the trunkline and transfer pumping stations associated with four wells. The Carrapateena mineral processing plant, which is currently under construction, will obtain water through the wellfield project. The Northern Wellfield project will include access roads, pipeline corridors, staging tanks, wellheads and pumps to source groundwater from deep underground aquifers for providing raw saline water to the mining operations. “This work demonstrates GR Engineering’s credentials in the supply of proc
Read more