July 2015
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World Coal
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75
T
his year has seen a number of key developments in the
digital mining space with the launch of Hexagon Mining at
this year’s Mining in Africa Indaba in Cape Town and the
news that Rio Tinto was adding data to the list of
commodities it mines with the opening of its Analytics Excellence
Centre in Pune, India. Then in June came the launch of ABB’s Next
Level mining strategy to help “secure the future of mining through
integrated operations and advanced information technology”.
Next Level mining
“The mining industry needs to innovate or risk its long-term
viability,” ABB said in a new white paper introducing its Next Level
mining concept.
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“Mining leaders need to think ahead and work out
how technology will transform the basics of their operation, their
customers and their supply chain [...] The future of mining belongs to
those advanced companies able to recognise today the benefits that
automation technologies will bring to the entire mine operation.”
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ABB identifies a number of challenges facing the mining industry
that technology can help to overcome. These include external issues,
such as harder to reach deposits, more volative commodity prices and
rising demand, as well as those that are internal to a mining company,
including:
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Overcoming disjointed communication and information silos from
within the mines.
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Leveraging collaboration across the entire supply chain.
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Managing aging assets to minimise downtime risk and its impact
on profitability.
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Dealing with an aging, difficult-to-replace-workforce.
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Improving safety through better prevention and quicker ability to
address problems effectively.
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Coping with energy volatility.
“The solution to all of these challenges, and thus the future of
mining, lies in the automation and integration of information – and
the use of that knowledge for real-time optimisation of the mining
process,” the company concludes.
To this end, ABB offers a number of ‘enabling technologies’, such
as its System 800xA automation platform (from which an entire
mining operation can be controlled), its extended operator workplace
(EOR), which integrates and presents the data collected by an
automation platform, and its enterprise software, acquired when ABB
bought Mincom in 2010.
“ABB's position in mining is to supply the complete data
integration solution and many of the elements crucial for mining,
such as gearless mill drives, hoists, complete plant electrification,
ultra-long-distance conveying, super-sized processing plant
technologies, integrated process control and optimisation solutions,
Jonathan Rowland
looks at recent
developments in the digital mining space.
