Modern Mining October 2024

COVER STORY

A digital solutions system installed on Warman pumps at a tailings facility.

Weir drives holistic approach to digital integration in mining Having invested for many years in digital innovations for mineral process optimisation and efficiency, Weir can now create more holistic solutions that change the face of mining.

I t is little surprise that the ‘digital and innovation’ category has climbed to fifth position in EY’s ranking of the top 10 business risks and opportunities for mining and metals in 2024, says Ole Knudsen, Senior Director for Digital at Weir. The EY report highlights that mines are looking to digital solutions as a key enabler for reducing costs while improving productivity, safety and ESG outcomes. “The challenge, however, is that the industry’s solutions to date have tended to be siloed and isolated from each other,” says Knudsen. “As the report points out, mines are generally very rich in data, but they struggle to manage this data effectively and to capture the insights that are hidden in the data. This limits the value that mines can gain from all the information they are collecting.” At the same time, he notes, original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) like Weir also have a wealth of design, manufacturing and operational data on their own equipment. Through greater collaboration between OEMs and miners, the combination of these two data sets holds considerable opportunity for optimising mineral recovery and reducing total cost of equipment ownership.

“We have invested heavily over many years in digital tools,” he explains. “Our Synertrex® intelligent ecosystem was our first digital solution focused on condition monitoring. However, our offering has evolved alongside the needs of our customers and our new intelligent solution, provides actionable insights and predictive maintenance, improving uptime and making maintenance more cost effective.” “This puts us in a good position to develop an integrated solution, by taking a more holistic approach,” says Knudsen. “This gives us better insights into the impact that equipment wear has on production performance as well as on how changes in production will affect the wear life of equipment.” This is particularly important because mines tend to separate the functions of operations and maintenance in the way they run their plants. These teams will not always be aware of how their decisions impact each other. However, mines themselves are becoming more data-driven and want to find new ways of tracking how their different activities impact on one another. “There are some very useful solutions in the market, but there is not enough ‘connection’

Ole Knudsen, Senior Director for Digital at Weir.

King Becerra, Director of Digital Product Strategy at Weir.

6  MODERN MINING  www.modernminingmagazine.co.za | October 2024