Industry 4.0 Points The Way To Mining’s Future

The technology space is an ever-changing environment, so like other industries, mining has to adapt to the latest technologies in order to remain relevant and competitive in the global market space.

This is why Industry 4.0 is so crucial to the mining space – it not only keeps the sector at the forefront of technological evolution, but also offers it tools to help it maintain a competitive edge.

In the current global economy, the key to remaining competitive is for mines to ensure they keep their productivity as high as possible, and their costs as low as they can. According to Sabine Dall’Omo, Siemens Sub-Saharan Africa CEO, the best way to achieve this is through automation, which is driven by Industry 4.0 solutions.

“For one thing, the mining industry has a great need to follow environmental, social and governance (ESG) legislation that is now prevalent in many markets. Remember that when it comes to investing in organisations, shareholders today tend to seek out those businesses that are following ESG principles and have strong ESG ratings.

“After all, mining is an extremely costly commitment to make, so investors would naturally want to ensure the business is both sustainable and compliant with these rules,” she says.

“Effective tracking of these commitments is extremely difficult to do manually, which is why mines should look to artificial intelligence (AI) to assist in ensuring ESG compliance for their commodities.”

Beyond the ESG aspect, she says, “mines can leverage integrated technology solutions to monitor and manage operations from pit to port, and to improve both efficiencies and safety through the implementation of relatively simple solutions like predictive maintenance”.

With predictive maintenance, continues Dall’Omo, Siemens can apply a system on-site that can be focused on individual assets, or the entire mining operation – it is that scalable – which consolidates data from field instrumentation and internet of things-based sensors. This enables the mine to determine the levels of wear and tear on a motor, conveyor or vehicle, to understand when it will require maintenance.

“Predictive maintenance improves a mine’s efficiency, as it helps management to determine the most suitable time to take a machine out of service. For example, they can schedule this out of working hours, or at a point when the market price for their commodity is lower.

“Furthermore, such maintenance helps to ensure the longevity of the equipment, and avoids production being brought to a halt by an unexpected breakdown. This helps to assure the reliability and safety of the plant.”

She says Siemens has a new digital offering, the Xcelerator platform, which is an enabler for a digital ecosystem. Xcelerator takes the instrumentation and automation of a plant, she says, and brings it together with AI and data analytics to enable a mine to predict when equipment is likely to fail.

“In a similar manner, this platform can act as a quality control tool, helping the mine to clearly understand other vital issues like water use, water quality, and water recycling.

“This, again, talks to the ESG component, and with the increasing number of compliance rules, the need to use tools like this to improve clarity, reduce errors and deliver quality information has never been greater.

“From a Siemens perspective, mining is a very important sector to us, so we are constantly working to find the best solutions and to partner with mining organisations to find the most effective ways to optimise their operations,” she says.