Mining is considered a dirty industry and has a perception of fostering unsustainable practices. But thanks to some new age mining companies such as OZ Minerals, things are changing for the good. In this edition of the fireside chat on the Matrix Forum, the Industrial SIG brings to you an insightful conversation with Michelle Ash, Technology Executive at OZ Minerals, about the challenges and opportunities in applying technology to solve the problems of the mining industry.
Michelle heads the technology transformation initiatives at OZ Minerals, a modern mining company based in Australia. She has more than 20 years of experience in the mining and manufacturing sectors with a focus on business improvement and change management. Prior to OZ Minerals, she was CEO of Dassault Systems GEOVIA software division where she led a growth strategy across the company’s natural resources sector, delivering next-generation solutions through geologic modeling and mining engineering software applications. Prior to this, Michelle was Chief Innovation Officer at Barrick Gold. She is also the Chair of Global Mining Group and a Board Member of technology start-ups Railveyor and Off World.
Given the sustainability issues related to the classical industries such as mining, and the perception about this being a polluting and dirty industry, Michelle has some interesting points of view on applying technology and digitization to modernizing the industry. She also dived into aspects of how her organization is meandering these challenges and preparing for digital transformation.
This History of Technology Adoption in the Mining Industry
Michelle recalls her early days in the mining industry, nearly thirty years back, and she concurs that the industry did not adopt the technology as well as some of the other traditional industries did, such as manufacturing. But the industry is currently leading some of the automation related technology such as autonomous trucks and loaders. Even the adoption of communications technology such as 4G LTE and 5G is going on at a pretty fast pace.
As per Michele, the accelerated adoption of technology in mining has happened in the last 7 years or so. There are many factors that drove this trend. Apart from the cost related pressures, there was also increasing pressures from government and communities about the impact on the environment and the overall impact from the ESG standpoint. As a result, there has been a focused effort on digitizing trivial processes, such as moving from pen and paper to tablets, and collecting a lot of data in digital formats. Now the bigger challenge is to encompass these siloed technology integrations into a full-scale digital transformation.
There is also a demographic change in the industry with many young people, specifically the aspiring gen Z employees, who are demanding technology adoption, in line with some of the other industries.
The Challenges of Achieving Decarbonization in Mining
Being a traditional industry, perceived as dirty and harmful to the environment, decarbonization is a priority issue for mining.
As per Michelle, the issue of decarbonization is something that has been through the optimization process in the mining industry over a long time. She claims this is like a beachhead for the mining industry to build back its credibility in its industrial leadership. Decarbonization is linked to both production and consumption of the mined output. But there are also operating costs of mining and companies have to do something radical to control these costs, without relying on the cost of the end product of mining. One such step is the complete elimination of dependency on diesel, by replacing all diesel engines with electric power. Electrification also opens up more avenues for automation as electric engines are much smoother to operate as compared to diesel engines.
There is also a humane aspect of decarbonization which is about offering a safer work environment to the employees, especially those who work deep in the mines or on remote sites.
Another aspect of decarbonization is about building wind, solar, or other alternative energy farms right on the site. Not only does it help in augmenting the patchy grid-based electricity supply in remote areas, it is much cheaper, and has much lesser losses compared to larger distributed power generation setups.
All these initiatives have a significant improvement in ground operations. Michelle also points out further optimizations in the mining process by reducing the movement of the excavated waste that accompanies the ore. For example, iron ore, is typically 73%, at best, iron, and the rest is dirt. In the case of copper ore, the composition of copper is only about 25%. So why move the dirt around and increase the carbon footprint? Instead, by employing precision extraction via In-Situ leaching, and solvent extraction technologies, the waste movement is significantly reduced and the metal extraction happens at the source.
Current Challenges in Technology Adoption in Mining Industry
Michelle views communication systems as a major hurdle for technology adoption in mining. A good, high-speed, reliable communication system that works well under the stringent environment of a mine is the need of the day. There is also this requirement of low power communication systems and a network that spans vast distances, covering remote areas and underground mines.
One of the major challenges as per Michelle is to make these systems work under varying temperature ranges since temperatures in underground mines can range from -40 degrees to 80 degrees in different parts of the world. These mines are also highly acidic which adds an additional level of environmental hostility. All these challenges around communication systems also impact the scope of automation in mines.
The aspirational goal for OZ Minerals and most of the mining companies is to operate with zero manpower at the frontlines, such that all the operations, especially in the deep mines, can be performed through robots monitored and controlled remotely. And a good, reliable communication system holds the key to this, and there are definite gaps in the current solution being adopted. These challenges also apply to the maintenance of equipment on deep mining sites.
Yet another challenge, as per Michelle, is the integration of IoT in a thoughtful manner. She notes that there is an element of over-sensing and monitoring of the equipment which leads to way too much data generation. As a result, there is a need for more intelligent IoT integration by leveraging data-driven, predictive maintenance. Another challenge related to IoT integration is the integration with age-old equipment, as some of the machines used in mining can be as old as 40 years. This further leads to the issues of interoperability. Often there are large fleets of mobile equipment where integration with IoT and coordination among legacy systems become very challenging.
Other challenges revolve around using AI techniques to really extract information from vast swathes of land for geological analysis of the orebody. The data extracted from the orebodies is highly unstructured and is a combination of visual imagery, chemical data as well as geological technologies to look inside a core to gauge its composition of it. All of these datasets have to be analyzed through data science to find out what is in the ground and how feasible is the mining operation.
Michelle also points out the challenges around people management. The most critical issue is monitoring their health parameters, and vital indicators to predict fatigue and other safety-related issues. On similar lines, assisting in people-to-people collaboration in mines is also a considerable challenge, wherein only one person is able to get into the depth of the mine and needs further assistance to solve a problem. Apart from that, there is this problem of matching the skill set of the personnel with the work that is to be done. One more related aspect of people management is managing the intrusion of mines, as this happens quite frequently in populated areas, especially in African countries.
Michelle also notes that cyber security postures in mining companies are also not so robust. So there are more and more incidents of hackers stealing information from mining companies. The same applies to the OT systems of mining companies.
Ways of Startup Engagements with Mining Companies
Michelle notes that the medium-sized mining companies are quite nimble and are willing to try newer technologies as long as they do not perceive it as a risk, and the value proposition is clear. Additionally, she also points out the problem related to habit change for personnel and employees working in the mines, which can become a hurdle in adoption.
Overall she predicts that a technology engagement for the mining sector typically takes around 18 months to 2 years for proving the technology.
OZ Minerals specifically works with an accelerator named Unearthed, which puts challenges related to the mining sector, which are available for everyone to explore. Michelle also recommends working with system integrators who can partner with startups to bring their technology to mining companies for trials.
Michelle believes that mining companies should work together as a consortium and approach the government to support the development of supplier organizations to help solve the problems of the mining industry and nurture them so that new solutions can be commercialized to spin off new industries. She also feels that the government should support an investment environment to bring in the private sector and venture capital players to fund the development cycle for ideas related to the mining sector, so that innovations can prosper beyond the initial grants or seed funds.
We thank Michelle for her time and valuable insights about the mining industry. You can connect or follow her on Linkedin and also check out OZ Minerals website for their offerings. Also, do check out their Think and Act Differently portal to know more about the possible challenges they are posting around building a modern mine.
