High levels of investment are being made in areas such as mine planning and management software, mine communication, and predictive maintenance, with increasing levels of investment in safety-related technologies that include drones, collision avoidance, and fatigue detection, according to the latest global mine-site technology adoption survey by GlobalData.
The annual survey asked 150 senior mine-site personnel regarding the degree to which they had invested in a range of technologies, and expectations for future investment.
Over the last five years, the share that had invested in drones has risen from 44 to 74 per cent, collision avoidance from 62 to 72 per cent, and fatigue detection from 53 to 72 per cent. Fatigue detection also had the third-highest share of respondents who expected to invest in the technology in the next two years (38 per cent), after predictive maintenance for equipment (40 per cent) and mine management software (39 per cent).
David Kurtz, Research & Analysis Director at GlobalData, comments: “While the use of mine planning and management software, and communications systems has been high across the globe for many years, recently miners have invested more extensively in areas such as drones, collision avoidance, and fatigue detection, helping to ensure a safer working environment.’’
Drones were found to be principally employed for surveying and mapping (90 per cent of those using drones) and monitoring and inspection (71 per cent), with 33 per cent using tailings dam monitoring and 31 per cent specifically for safety purposes. In Australia and Africa, the percentage of mines using them for safety purposes is 56 and 36 per cent, respectively.
Some 30 per cent of respondents indicated that they had fully implemented collision avoidance technology, with the largest share having invested in Australasia, and the highest share expecting to invest in the next two years in the Americas at 37 per cent.
Respondents were also asked about the alignment of the majority of their fleet with the Earth Moving Equipment Safety Round Table (EMESRT) framework, and specifically the top three levels of incident control, which deal with notice to the operators (Level 7), alert controls (Level 8) and intervention controls (Level 9).
Of the respondents, 21 per cent were at Level 7, 31 per cent at Level 8, and 18 per cent at Level 9. However, over the next two years, the share with the majority of their fleet at Level 9 is expected to rise from 18 to 28 per cent to provide a faster response to any possible collision.
Kurtz concludes: “Across the regions, Australasia was marginally ahead of the other regions in terms of the degree to which mines had invested in drones, collision avoidance, and fatigue detection, while the majors ranked above the mid-tier miners on collision avoidance and fatigue detection in particular, and surface mines had invested to a much greater extent than underground when it came to drones.”
