Capital Equipment News September 2020

globally have moved their short-term focus to autonomous operations and operational decision support, including Connected Worker. “We have developed digital solutions around five key pillars with regards to post COVID-19 workforce resilience, as mining organisations look for ways to return workers to the mine safely and with limited risk to co-workers.” This is done through a combination of digital technologies including thermal scanning, wearables, tracking apps and others. The data generated from these solutions is used to assist in planning and executing essential services through data insight platforms. “Digital can further assist in the drive to increase efficiencies through Rapid Remote Expert solutions which assist field workers with ‘remote coaching’ through wearable and mobile devices.” He says the consolidation and integration of data sources can lead to insights generated across the value chain, driving further improvements in efficiency and profitability. thyssenkrupp Industrial Solutions global product lifecycle management, Automation and Digitalisation Martin Krex, and Matthias Göing, the company’s head of Global Product Lifecycle Management, say an important point now is to analyse the entire process chain, to identify bottlenecks. “This can be done most effectively by means of our #digitalizedexpertise drive, which covers the entire digitalisation chain of the plant, i.e. from the use of an edge device, over the data transfer into the cloud, an analytic service, up to the plant optimisation recommendation and, should the customer so choose, the optimisation of the plant itself. All of this can and will be done remotely,” says Göing. Slow adoption, business case On the mining industry’s traditionally slow adoption of new technologies due in part to the scale and complexity of their operations, Naidu says industry has taken the “fastest follower” approach, whereby they are more open to the adoption of tried and tested solutions than to cutting- edge technologies. “Having said this, mining operations are primed to invest heavily and deploy such systems more readily than most other industries,” he says. However, many factors are considered with these types of decision, including the projected life of mine; current operational performance; robustness of available technology in rough

Organisations with a digital presence experienced less disruption during the COVID-19 lockdown period than those without one.

Organisations with a digital presence experienced less disruption during the COVID-19 lockdown period than those without one

South African mining companies have skipped a key step in their digital transformation journey

The systems currently available strive for fully autonomous functionality, but most still require a manned remote station to deal with complex situations

Mines of the future will have their business models entrenched in technology as a means to deliver value

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These levels of complexity, says Naidu, vary from Basic, where warnings are sounded through Internet of Things (IoT) devices, to Intermediate, where integrated planning systems consider production targets, spare parts availability, workshop capacity and other factors. In the Advanced level, he says, data analytics and machine learning enable predictive maintenance: “They use historical data to determine the circumstances under which major failures will occur, then project the estimated timeline to when these will

occur, based on the current health status of that machine.” Accenture Technology in Africa Industry X.0 MD Eric Croeser says organisations with a digital presence experienced less disruption during the COVID-19 lockdown period than those without one. “We have seen a need for mining organisations to expand their digital footprints and most of these opportunities are now in the Connected Worker category, following the pandemic.” He says a recent IDC study showed that mining organisations

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