Introduction

The new normal created due to the pandemic has a big hand in the acceleration of the use of technology in every sector of work. Industry heads all over the globe are coming up with newer, faster, and more sustainable alternatives to existing practices. The sensitivity to environmental impact and social concerns such as the livelihood of communities also are essential factors that researchers have had to keep in mind while exploring different ways of increasing productivity.

These alternatives are especially beneficial in the case of potentially dangerous jobs because they are substituted by the use of digital tools that do the work in a much efficient way, without harming anyone or anything in the process.

Mining is one such sector that has faced a lot of criticism throughout history about unsafe methods, objectionable practices, and the potentially dangerous environments miners and mining engineers are subjected to. Thus, mining productivity decreased by about 25% in the last decade.

The mining industry is becoming even more complex as it deals with resources that are getting harder to access day by day, capital looking to be greener, and the rising demand and need for profitability. Thus, a change in approach in the mining industry is a need of the hour that can only be achieved by increasing the reliance on digital tools that ensure a growing focus on sustainability while increasing productivity.

Sustainability in the Mining Industry

The decline in mining operations has been noticed worldwide, and the decrease in productivity has been observed across different commodities in the past decade. Though the drop doesn’t seem so surprising when we consider the demand supercycle that this industry has seen in this period. It succeeded in expanding the production of certain commodities by 50% or even more, but it ended poorly with the production costs spiraling out of control.

So, the sword remains hanging over the heads of the managers to cut production costs while finding ways to improve mining outputs, in other words, to raise the productivity bar without additional cost. This productivity performance issue is one that must be addressed and studied closely. So governments, CEOs, and investors are putting joint efforts along with publicly funded research institutions to acknowledge and reverse the downward trend.

Leveraging digital tools can create an inflection point in the mining industry’s productivity rate by unlocking new,sustainable ways to manage estimations, variabilities, and constraints.

One such way is by having the latest geological estimation processes included in the production schedule. Geology and mine planning tools like GEOVIA Surpac with integrated production scheduling through their MineSched software do just this task for mining engineers. Quickly incorporated resource estimations help geologists improve their work efficiency as they don’t have to waste their time waiting for the computer to process estimations. Geologists, thus, have more time to devote to other areas of the business, which in turn helps in improving the overall productivity at the mine site.
Similarly, with digital geology and mining tools, mining engineers are able to design and mine effectively through scientific extraction of the minerals, which minimizes waste mining. This ensures that the correct material is sent to processing and waste. The reason why this is a substantial aspect is that if waste material is mined and sent for processing, not only will the mining company spend unnecessary money with zero returns, but it also will create unnecessary wear on equipment that will shorten its life cycle and drive-up maintenance costs in the long run. Thus, software like GEOVIA Surpac contributes greatly to supporting open pit and underground mining operations.

Digitization of the Mining Industry

In many developed countries, the mining industry has an aging workforce. It is estimated that more than 60% of the workforce will be retiring in the next decade itself. The younger generation getting into the mining sector does not see mining through the same lens, and it is only for the better. Digitization is infiltrating this space similar to what happened in the automotive and aerospace sector, and the mining community is becoming more digitally suave.

Extrinsic factors such as environment, social concerns, and limited resources are driving towards the digitization of mines to provide a transparent view to all stakeholders. On the other hand, intrinsic factors such as the younger generation being digital natives – interested in job automation, robotics, working with drones, and being familiar with remote working is also a huge driving factor for the digitization of mines.

While we have established that digitization has the potential to bring about sustainability in the turbulent mining industry, how exactly can we do so?

The aspects of mining, such as processing large amounts of sensor data to obtain accurate and consistent pictures of the rock face, its geological modeling, on-the-day scheduling, and predictive maintenance, are made significantly easier by digitization.

The Surpac software has comprehensive tools which include:
• Drillhole data management
• Geological modeling
• Block modeling
• Geostatistics
• Mine Design
• Mine planning
• Resource or reserve estimation.

It helps enhance productivity, usability, and sustainability to extract valuable resources while being modular and easily customizable to adapt to changing needs. In this integrated environment, designs can be created to maximize ore recovery while complying with project constraints such as cut-off grade, economic limits, and ground stability. It also aids usability by allowing expanded sharing of data, skills, and project knowledge across teams and departments and maintaining consistency of execution using task automation. This means increased time savings for the company.

Who can use it, and how will it help them?

In mining and survey organizations, mining engineers, geologists, and surveyors are the primary users of the GEOVIA Surpac application. Mining engineers will utilize its tools for open pit and underground mine design and reserve estimation. Apart from Mine design, it will also assist them with dump design.

Geologists will be utilizing the Surpac tools for drill hole data management and exploration planning to prepare geological sections and for 3D orebody modeling, block modeling, geostatistics, and resource estimation.

Surveyors will utilize this application to fetch and process updated survey information of the mine sites to find updated features of the location. The input survey details will be from total station, DGPS, GPS, and Point cloud data.

How to get started?

If you’re a mining engineer, geologist, or surveyor and are willing to learn the futuristic and sustainable ways of the mining industry and the world’s most popular geology and mine planning software GEOVIA Surpac, the EDST e-learning course on the same will be a sound choice. This course will help you understand how this latest, industry-standard software is used in geology, mine planning, and management processes.

This Surpac course provides hands-on practice sessions along with the 12-hour long course video content that holds a validity of 90 days. All you need is a basic knowledge of computers, and on completion of the course, you will have industry-ready skills in the application of the software. AutoCAD and GIS knowledge, though not mandatory, might serve as an added advantage for you. You are also awarded the EDST e-Learning course completion certificate, which boosts your resume significantly while applying for jobs in this field.

About Pramod Kumar Sarangi
Pramod has more than 26 years of experience in the field of geology and mine planning. He is involved in exploration and mine planning activities of Iron, Chromite, China Clay and Limestone mines. He has more than 7 years of experience at EDS Technologies in sales and customer support of GEOVIA solutions.

Twitter •