Digital Transformation in Mining and the Impact on Workplace Injuries
“One of the most dangerous jobs in the world — and for good reason,” is how Scottish engineering company Howden describes the mining career field. It is an apt assessment, given that the nature of the mining work requires explosives, exposure to extreme temperatures, and of course, the ever-present risk of deadly cave-ins. Then there’s the toxic air and associated list of hazards which reads like an encyclopedia of things that can kill you: arsenic, asbestos, blasting cadmium, coal dust, cobalt, cyanide, diesel emissions, ionizing radiation, lead, mercury, oil mist, silica, and sulfur acid mist, to name but a few.
Yet the unchanging fact is, our Earth is filled with precious resources we need to extract, and mining remains the most viable, if risky, option. Humans have been mining in one form or another for thousands of years, with the General Mining Act of 1872 paving the way to incentive U.S. prospectors and miners at a critical turning point in our nation’s history. But in the span of years since that crucial and controversial law was enacted, countless tragic mining accidents have cost thousands of lives. That’s starting to change thanks to digital transformation and the introduction of high-tech equipment and processes aimed at keeping workers out of harm’s way.
Rise of the Mining Machines
In modern times, investments in new technologies, along with the adaptation of existing ones, have begun to mitigate the dangers and reduce mining injuries and fatalities. Two of the most exciting innovations in recent years have been the rise of drones and the advent of mining automation processes. Let’s take a closer look at both.
Drones for Mining
Once merely a gadget for hobbyists, the potential of drones has been harnessed for everything from package delivery to law enforcement, film and commercial production, and construction planning. Now pioneering companies are bringing the power of unmanned and aerial data collection technology to the world of mining. Drones help improve safety by performing functions such as imagery collection in unsafe areas. These images can be used to produce 3D digital terrain models, saving time and the human labor used in traditional surveying, inspection, and mapping techniques.
“We believe in using technology to make work safer and more efficient,” notes drone company senseFly, explaining how their drone solutions “simplify the collection and analysis of geospatial data, allowing professionals in surveying, agriculture, engineering, and humanitarian aid to make better decisions, faster.”
In a senseFly interview with Aidan O’Connor, aerial surveying expert and ASM Ireland’s managing director, O’Connor mentioned a vital safety benefit he’s witnessed in the field. “In my experience, surveyors often take precarious risks to get to edges, and they have to work close to machines that sometimes weigh more than a hundred tons. With a drone, you don’t need to get out to those edges,” he points out, citing efficiency and safety as the two main benefits drones can offer.
Meanwhile, Swiss drone maker Flyability places safety first on its list of key benefits for indoor mining drones, explaining that in the past, miners could not enter a stope (or excavation site step or notch) after a blast — but today, drones can. “Using an indoor drone…to gather detailed visual data of the area, miners can now perform safety assessments that allow them to make an informed decision about whether a stope is safe to enter or not,” Flyability reports.
Automation and Robotics in Mining
Drones are only one type of technology making mining safer for workers. In its review of top safety innovations, the mine digitization company Groundhog lists robotics and automation as key problem-solvers. Just as these technologies have done in other industries such as manufacturing, in recent years they have been slowly tackling mining activities traditionally done by human-controlled machinery. From “self-driving trucks to robotic haulage, drilling, and other processes, autonomous equipment boosts safety by removing workers from hazardous environments,” Groundhog writes.
While the World Economic Forum’s ambitious Digital Transformation Initiative has sought to boost the adoption of mining automation processes, some companies have been leading the charge. One such group, the Australia-based international mining firm Rio Tinto, has been successfully using three-story-tall, self-driving, ore-carrying vehicles for years. Citing itself as a “learning organization,” Rio Tinto proclaims, “Safety is our first value,” noting that they use automation and robots to do at least “some of our high-risk work” while partnering with committees, communities, and contracting partners to learn and share knowledge with a goal of protecting workers.
Rio Tinto’s Mine of the Future initiative, launched in 2008, continues to develop and refine technologies such as centralized operation centers for remotely managing operations, autonomous drilling, and autonomous trains and truck haulage systems. Such technological adoptions not only enhance safety and productivity but can make it easier for companies to understand their return on investment.
In terms of saving human lives, the return on investment is pretty high. In a white paper published by the World Economic Forum, over the next 10 years of digital transformation initiatives, automation could lead to “an improvement in safety, with around 1,000 lives saved and 44,000 injuries avoided. This equates approximately to a 10% decrease in lives lost and a 20% decrease in injuries in the industry.”
Digital Disruption and Evolution in the Mining Industry
Critics point out that automation can lead to lost job opportunities, which has always been a sticking point when it comes to implementing autonomous processes. However, this complaint is countered by the fact that automation not only creates new types of jobs but may allow companies to stay competitive in situations where jobs are lost anyhow due to cheaper foreign labor costs.
Meanwhile, the World Economic Forum has warned of several critical challenges facing the mining and metals industry, such as weakened global demand, excess capacity, increased customer requirements, trade flow disruptions, resource regulation, workforce skill gaps, and declining resource access and quality. Its solution to surviving in this “new normal” is to seize all opportunities offered by digital technologies.
This includes not only drones and robotics but also wearable tech, radio-frequency identification tags, and worksite simulators, all designed in part to reduce human exposure to workplace hazards. The technologies are out there and they are myriad, yet some risk-averse companies remain hesitant, preferring to jeopardize human life and limb instead of upfront capital. Eventually, that strategy could be costly.
As highlighted by Forbes, the American economy grew by 40% during the 1920s with the help of technological innovations. Now the 2020s offer their own tech revolution, but it’s up to the mining industry to leverage and maximize these opportunities. Forward-thinking mining organizations will continue to invest the time and money to procure, then learn how to use and implement new technologies and associated processes — not just for the sake of efficiency and long-term overhead costs reduction, but most importantly for the health, safety, and well-being of their employees.
