Starting Digitalization in Mining

How to approach starting a Digitalization Initiative

Following the megatrend of digitalization, also within the mining industry there exist concerns about missing out and falling behind in competition. This drives the will and the objective to implement digitalization in one's own company in order to be prepared for the future. This raises the challenge where to start. How can a starting point be found to set up digitalization and make sure to actually create value?

The real challenge in the field of digitalization is that digitalization is possible in all themes and directions. There are simply no boundaries and natural limitations. It is not a “product” in a sense that it is clear of value and its application. Data and digital tools are rather multifunctional - at least as long as a use case can be built on collecting and evaluating data. An application or use case for digitalization should be able to be described as mathematically as possible. Simply put: Digitization is MS Excel - it might be a good starting point, if a use case can be modelled on a small scale via tables and interconnections via formulas of the MS Excel functionalities. This example actually makes the challenge of digitalization very tangible: How to select and enter appropriate parameters and define relationships to obtain as many new insights from the results as possible. And only those new and unknown insights create value by utilizing them to make value-adding decisions. Only those make up the business case and allow to evaluate, if implementation and operation of a digital solution actually is an economic one and pays off its efforts.

A possible starting point for mining in this very broad freedom to operate is to work out an overarching objective for digitalization. In the first step, this means defining the framework conditions, e.g. defining a certain process step from the flowchart. Within these limits the demand for “growth” as a value creation lever can be a potential next step to sharpen the task. Within those boundaries use cases can be acquired, especially in consultation with stakeholders of the relevant operational processes. This resulting bouquet of use cases allow evaluations to prepare the next steps accordingly.

The design of this stepwise roadmap generation requires an in-depth examination and understanding of the distinct mining operation and its economic environment. This basis can then be used to develop sub-projects that allow digital use cases to be developed and implemented in a tangible, step-by-step manner and, as a whole, form a digitalization strategy. While building this strategy, the focus is on operational processes and their related use cases. Thus, it can be stated that the starting point to build a structured roadmap is actually not an IT task, but a mining engineering challenge more than anything.

Stefan Ebert, Digital Mining Technologist

To create genuine business value through digitalization in mining, deep mining expertise is key. Only those with extensive knowledge of mining operations and processes can accurately identify and define substantial problem statements that address real industry challenges.