Mining enterprises are becoming increasingly digital and interconnected and this trend promises to make mining companies much more adaptable, robust and sustainable into the future.

This is according to information technology consultancy and systems integration firm Wipro global mining practice director Scott McGowan, who notes that all mining companies are progressing along a similar path, but the speed at which they digitise is the distinguishing factor.

Wipro has mapped out the transition to digital mining enterprises, which is not linked to any specific technologies, but uses the capabilities of information and communication technologies to enable cost reductions and operational flexibility.

“There is no silver bullet for mining companies and each transition will be a long-term journey that results in their evolution into decentralised and agile enterprises,” he says.

Counterintuitively, mining enterprises must first use technology to centralise their operations worldwide, which will also enable lower costs for back-office and administrative functions, says Wipro Africa business director Shailendra Singh.

“Many companies are not always aware of the technology equipment and systems that they have in place or gained through acquisitions, leading to inefficiencies,” he notes.

Centralisation and integration of systems and global operations will provide the coherent flow of information and an in-house information-sharing platform that will improve planning and resource allocation, and many mining houses are currently at this stage of transitioning to a digital enterprise.

“While the initial stages of digitisation will provide cost reductions and efficiencies, companies should reinvest the savings from such initiatives to fund the progression to a digital enterprise, as it is the speed at which mining houses are able to transition that will provide the most important benefits over the long term,” notes McGowan.

The benefits of becoming a digital mining enterprise include the ability to rapidly deploy and correctly size deployments to exploit increasingly marginal and disparate orebodies, and to effectively, safely and competitively manage many dispersed sites that have varying conditions and requirements.

“The mining industry has not previously faced the same scale and length of depressed and volatile commodities markets as it does currently, and, in response, mining companies will have to change the way they operate. Simultaneously, exploitable orebodies are smaller in scale than was typical in the past, necessitating lower capital expenditure and expertise sharing to exploit these resources.”

Centralisation will enable detailed identification of the criteria of each project as required by the scale of the operation, the operational environment and the value of the extracted minerals, besides other criteria.

“Good understanding of the resources required by each project will eventually enable mining companies to deploy a ‘mine in a box’ solution, where portions of integrated internal resources are assigned to provide support for and management of disparate operations, based on the scope, scale and complexity of the project.”

This decentralised method of operating will also improve a mining company’s ability to draw in and retain skilled people, as their location will be less important than is currently the case.