As the mining industry grapples with the pressure to decarbonize and secure capital investments, will this be the compelling driver to ensure that mining is AI-ready? AI and IoT initiatives have grown within the industry for years now. The mining industry has made significant investments to migrate core platforms into the cloud and ensure data readiness. It is now time to put your data to work.
Decarbonization has been one of the emerging new factors that drive AI and IoT initiatives in the mining industry. Several leading miners have begun taking steps to reduce their environmental footprint with AI technology platforms. Some have taken immediate action by investing in renewable energy and electrification while also improving governance to align with global climate risk reporting standards.
To decarbonize successfully, mining companies have begun to combine AI solutions as well as renewables, electrification, carbon offsetting, data management and data integrity assurance for environmental, social and governance (ESG) reporting.
The scale and reach of these advanced technologies have yet to be fully realized. So, what are these opportunities?
Safety and incident prevention
End-to-end asset management to reduce waste and downtime
Standardization to enable innovation
Manage new project ventures
Remain competitive
Reduce operational and health and safety risks
Environment and community (HSEC) risks
Maintain a social license to operate (SLO)
Increase worker engagement and productivity
Facilitate compliance with critical regulatory requirements
System interoperability
A significant issue that has persisted from the beginning of mining activities to the present day is the impact on health, safety and the environment. The dangers associated with mining are multiple, including the hazardous environment people face and often the use of large and dangerous equipment.
Looking back at discussions during Accenture and the World Economic Forum (2017), the report argued that digital transformation initiatives embraced by the mining and metals industry over ten years could improve safety, where around 1,000 lives are saved and 44,000 injuries avoided. The economic, environmental and productivity benefits digital transformation could generate for the mining industry over a decade (2015 to 2025) exceed $425 billion (USD).
This is where Octave's expertise can help your organization. Octave has true mining lifecycle capabilities that can aid with the need to digitalize and transform operational systems and processes or accelerate your continuous improvement initiatives and improve decision-making. Octave helps mining companies prevent fatalities and injuries, drive compliance to processes, protect all asset investments and implement cyber integrity solutions or build comprehensive digital twins.
An example of our value can be found with Rustenburg Platinum Mines Limited (Anglo American Platinum). Its journey toward digitalization began by connecting process systems with big data collectors and data generators; however, it quickly realized this did not cover everything.
The lack of comprehensive data interoperability within Anglo American Platinum spread throughout operations of essential spreadsheets that housed human and manually entered data.
This spurred the company to implement Octave Tempo Operations Management (formerly j5 Operations Management Solutions) at five sites to gather the human and ad hoc data scattered throughout their operations and interface it with the Aveva™ PI System™, SQL databases, custom websites and other operational data sources.
Although early in deployment, Anglo American Platinum has already seen benefits from its initial implementations and exponential growth in Tempo Operations Management adoption. Operations have simplified and, in some cases, entire systems have been eliminated. And that was just one benefit.
Another mining company further along in its digital transformation journey is BHP Minera Escondida. On their Spence Growth Option mining project, they built a modern copper and molybdenum concentration plant using Octave's digital twin technology throughout the execution of the project.
The digital twin solution enables the management of engineering and operations information centrally and transparently by all personnel involved in the project. This helps increase the safety, reliability and efficiency of the operational assets.
In engineering, revisions are traditionally handmade and contractors can make errors. Since BHP adopted these software solutions, potential mistakes have decreased from the start to finish of projects and there has been a demonstrable increase in profit.
Take the step with Octave; it's time to put your data to use and transform unstructured information into a smart digital asset to visualize, build and manage structures and facilities of all complexities, ensuring safe and efficient operation throughout the entire lifecycle.
For more information, check out additional mining resources and learning or speak to an expert with more than 30 years experience, Kris Holmes.