Modern Mining October 2022

DIGITAL MINE

Digital mine provides the competitive edge The South African mining industry has long been perceived as one that is slow to change, however, PwC’s advisory technical consulting senior manager, Ian Mackay, and Africa energy, utilities and resources leader, Andries Ros souw, advise that this is not the case. Rather, the country has many top-notch digital mines that compete head-to head with some of the best mines in the world. By Nelendhre Moodley .

“ A doption of digital technologies across mines is near universal with distinct goals attached to their progress. However, digi tal adoption in underground operations occurs to a lesser extent (simply because of the extremely high cost of adding fibre or internet under ground) than in open-cast operations, which have embraced the integration of the Internet of Things and robotics into the fabric of the mining operation. As it stands, some of our coal mines are as close to being fully digital as can possibly be achieved,” says Mackay. He adds that nearly all South African mines vis ited had adopted strong digital programmes, with the majority of opencast mines fully embracing the digital mine concept and having evolved to become highly digital operations. For old conventional deep underground mines though, it is not feasible to digitise the entire opera tion and so miners implement online/offline systems that synchronise to the server once miners reach the surface of the operations. Mackay explains that the adoption of digital transformation has been driven by the “enormously influential backdrop of political turmoil in Europe and the Covid pandemic which have forced miners to question a number of their long-held assumptions, including those related to complex single source

supply chains and just-in-time production methods. “In the face of these global challenges, the assumptions are failing to hold weight, and in a bid to mitigate some of the challenges, miners have been forced to adapt. For instance, it has become necessary for miners to stockpile product in order to deal with supply chain constraints. Aside from export container availability and the mounting cost of con tainers, which has risen from $800 prior to Covid to $8 200 per container, product takes twice as long to reach its destination.” Unlocking benefits of digital mine “Importantly,” he says, “digital mine help miners to squeeze the value of every rand spent and assists them to take corrective action very quickly.” For an industry that faces a typical 2 – 3% annual cost inflation, digital mine has facilitated a significant upside. Machine learning tools paired with artificial intel ligence in supply chain programmes have helped miners realise the lessons learned from global manu facturing, of cost efficiency of up to 6% per annum. By constantly evolving and optimising sup ply chains, the mining industry continues to lower costs, improve efficiencies and productivity, and ulti mately, the bottom line. “For example,” says Mackay, “through the use of digital technologies, one of

PwC’s Africa energy, utilities and resources leader, Andries Rossouw.

PwC’s advisory technical consulting senior manager, Ian Mackay.

the junior mining houses inter viewed has unlocked additional value by harnessing data analy sis, and has subsequently been handsomely rewarded.” In order to better understand its dosing requirements, the company made the decision to take chemical (flocculant and reagent) readings at 15 second intervals, which revealed that the miner had been overdosing the minerals process. Upon this realisation, the miner reduced its chemical dos age to the required quantity, which has saved the company thousands of rands. “By employing technology to better understand its opera tion, the miner has been able to adjust the amount of product

Adoption of digital technologies across mines is near universal.

26  MODERN MINING  October 2022