Hi Mining Week'1! Hi On Hi Mining IQ’s Top Tips for New Technology Adoption!.
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A Hit Mining imagine we run around 20 different mining technology events a year, all around the globe.
Technology in mining is one of my personal favourite interest areas in the sector, as it’s always changing and evolving!
Whether you work in mobile maintenance in the workshop, operating a haulage truck, overseeing PLC systems in the plant or monitoring security on site – there’s always a new and shiny technology being lauded as the new best thing to happen to mining.
Technology is absolutely a fundamental enabler for the future of the sector, and must be embraced in order for the industry to claw back productivity levels and try to reduce cost levels across the board.
However, poor technology (whether we’re talking software, hardware or equipment) purchases can be devastating to an operation. It can have negative effects on productivity, FINANCES or the safety of your workers.
Over the past 12 months attending numerous conferences around Australia hearing senior leaders from BHP Billiton, Rio Tinto, Glencore, Newcrest, Newmont, Anglo American and many, many more, discussing successes and failures in NEW TECHNOLOGY adoption at their sites.
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Here are the highlights of their key takeaways and
lessons learned:
- Ease of integration and legacy issues: this is now a fairly obvious statement to make, and yet still purchases are made every year in the sector without full consideration given to how much data can be moved over from past systems and how much the new one will “talk” to those it directly needs to interact with.
- You must consider the impact on all other systems further down the value chain. If you’re upgrading scanners on the CONVEYOR SYSTEM within the processing plant, you cannot ignore any impact that may have on the PLC system, or the SCADA system. Mapping out the knock on effect of upgrades on all inter-related systems is critical to ensure there are no failures or glitches when the implementation occurs.
- Beware of the vendor lock in! Open source is the way forward, and should absolutely be considered when creating supplier short lists and selections. It may whittle out the majority of the vendors, but will give you a far greater freedom to select add on products from the best providers, rather than being forced to purchase an overarching solution from one provider.
- Don’t be afraid to source from overseas, but make sure you run the trials before you commit! More advanced mining nations such as Australia, Canada, Sweden, the USA and South Africa can sometimes be averse to purchasing from overseas regions that have historically been viewed as providing low-cost and low-quality equipment. However, procuring from overseas can sometimes supply significant pay off s, provided the equipment is tested early on and clear specifications provided.
- Collect as much data early on as possible – it becomes harder further down the track to make changes, when more data becomes available, so you must be proactive in DATA COLLECTION early in the project, otherwise you risk making costly mistakes.
- Involve operational staff early (if this is a decision being pushed by senior management), to help test products/systems. Feedback from them earlier on should be critical to help tweak errors, flaws or design issues. This will also help hugely with user engagement and adoption further down the track.
- Always ensure you weight the upfront cost vs. life cycle cost and bear that in mind making any decisions based largely on cost. Whilst some products will inevitably be more expensive up front, that can also mean they come with better after-care from the supplier, longer warranties, higher quality parts or lower maintenance requirements (amongst other things).
- Align any technology purchase or upgrade with the wider BUSINESS STRATEGIES and goals. If it is not in line with the wider business goals it will be harder to demonstrate ROI and value to the business when you are building the business case to purchase it, but also if you go ahead and implement it and then inevitably have to conduct a review.
- Evaluate the interface design and usability: the technology is only as good as the people using it and if the NEW TECHNOLOGY is difficult to use, or it isn't clear how it can benefit the user to utilise it, then your operations staff are unlikely to fully engage with it.
- Training for all staff that will be using the technology so they properly understand how to use it and what the full potential of the system is for improving both their JOB and the wider company results.
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Hi THANK YOU!.
