Digital transformation in cave mining

Abstract

Globally, safety and productivity are still the main concerns in the mining industry, particularly in operations using caving mining methods. Digital transformation is an approach to run the mining business more safely, profitably and sustainably. However, there are still several issues that are preventing the effective integration across the whole caving process. Digital transformation is the ability to "think and do" the cave mining business differently. The digital era enables not only having a connected mine to make quicker and better decisions to improve safety, productivity and profitability but also influences the organisations to make a transition from a reactive to a proactive, industrialised management approach. This would enable a more informed understanding and therefore increased control of the caving processes. In practice, this transformation will require the caving industry to move from a traditional, experience based, segmented operating model to an agile, integrated, dynamic, business value driven model, fostering a modern digital culture to ensure sustainable cave mining into the future. This paper, written to supplement a keynote address by the author, discusses how digital technologies will help cave mining change the way of doing business to reach new levels of performance across the caving process, particularly in more challenging mining conditions.