Perhaps the greatest opportunity presented by the current technology wave is the capacity to customise digital solutions; the real challenge may be that users are not always clear about exactly what they want to achieve, or indeed what the latest innovations are that could help.
According to Xanthe Adams, a principal engineer at SRK Consulting Cape Town in South Africa, sensor technology and big data infrastructure, for instance, has been opening doors to efficiency and productivity gains in many sectors including mining. Real-time monitoring of equipment and processes can now generate huge volumes of valuable data, which can be transferred almost instantly to a storage platform on the web. Ongoing developments in analytical capability make it possible to analyse this data in ways that quickly render it useful to an end-user so that strategic value can be added.
Among the fields in which these trends have seen valuable take-up is in remote water level monitoring on mines’ tailing dams. Using automated vibrating wire piezometers to measure water pressure on tailings facilities, for instance, large amounts of data can be generated and transmitted in real-time. The prompt analysis and interpretation of such data allows quicker and better decisions that enhance safety.
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