AUTOMATION
IM spoke to Dmitry Vladimirov, CEO of Russia-based
digital mine and automation leader VIST Group
Q As a company you have three active truck automation projects with a
phosphate miner in Morocco, and with coal miner SUEK and contractor
Region 42 in Russia. Can you give an update on the status of all three of
these projects?
A I’m very proud that VIST is involved in all these projects, which are
significantly important for the company. With SUEK, being a strategic
partner of VIST Group, we came to a decision to establish a special zone
in the mine, to run the project. The first autonomous truck was delivered
to the mine in early winter 2018, more trucks are to come later, and the
required infrastructure, including movable control room should be done
by the end of Q2 2019. I can also highlight the project with Region 42 as
this is an example of automation associated with a contractor business
model. It’s a challenge to convince a contractor company to use
autonomous vehicles, that there is sufficient efficiency, and I believe that
by the end of the year we will achieve good results.
Q Do you yet have the autonomous truck and wheel loader combination
operating anywhere?
A At this moment the combination of the autonomous truck BELAZ-7513R
and front loader BELAZ-78250 has only been tested at BELAZ’s factory
testing area. Starting last autumn, a joint team of VIST and BELAZ
engineers executed several series of tests, to be able to provide the best
quality and reliability to future customers. We expect to see the
autonomous truck with loader operating in mines later this year.
BELAZ semi-autonomous wheel loader and
autonomous truck at the BELAZ testing
ground, both using VIST Group automation
systems
Q Is there real interest from mines in automating shovels in addition to
trucks?
A By now we see interest to expand autonomous mode to the shovels
from several mines in Siberia, though shovels are the hardest type of
mining equipment to be operated in autonomous mode. We are in active
negotiations with a Russian manufacturer to be able to provide
autonomous and remote control shovels in future.
Q How are you seeing demand for autonomous blasthole drilling in the
markets you serve?
A This demand is growing, and mostly for retrofitting the existing drilling
equipment to the autonomous mode. What drives this demand? Safety
and efficiency at the same time. Companies want to increase efficiency
through more accurate guidance at the point of drilling.
Q As a company while you have done a lot of automation development
with BELAZ, you are not tied to them in terms of offering your solution. Is
it important to still be “OEM agnostic” when most other offerings are now
owned by truck OEMs eg Hitachi/Epiroc/Komatsu/CAT?
A Yes, while being in a very significant and important partnership with
BELAZ, we always stayed independent, and consider this as a major
advantage. For example our Morocco autonomous truck was a retrofitted
20 International Mining | APRIL 2019
Terex model, and in most of our FMS projects we do have trucks from
different producers similarly included in our systems. Being “OEM
agnostic” – is our strategic way of development, allowing us to cover
almost all customer needs, we can’t say to the customer, “if you don’t
have all BELAZ trucks we won’t work with you”. Keeping the right balance
between one strategic producer (BELAZ) and being able to work with
other equipment for sure is an advantage.
Q The mining automation market is now dominated by retrofitting of
technology onto existing machines rather than buying “new” autonomous
equipment. Again, does your independence give you an advantage here?
A We can work both with the existing transport and pre-equip it and
combine the approaches - retrofitting the old ones and supplying
completely new autonomous trucks. This approach allows us to offer
customers more flexible conditions for the automation of mining
equipment.
Q The Intelligent Mine gives miners many semi autonomous or “light”
autonomous options on the road to full autonomy: are you finding this is
the way most miners are choosing to go in the markets where you
operate?
A We believe that if we offer the client a choice, this will increase loyalty
and speed up his decision to integrate our systems. The phased
introduction of an autonomous Intelligent Mine allows to smoothly
optimise and change the operation of equipment, which has a positive
effect on performance, because radical changes are always much harder
for customers.
Q Are you seeing competition now from other “independents” in the
Russian and Asian markets? Does the fact you are a leading FMS supplier
give you greater market understanding and penetration?
A For sure we could say that our market understanding inside Russia
allows us to keep leading positions in digital solutions for mining. But
technology is constantly evolving, and you can never be sure that you
provide everything your customers need. Also in the mining industry
solutions are getting more and more complex, including not only haulage
but other production chain processes that corresponds to the respective
customer needs. The merger with the Finnish ZYFRA company we did last
autumn had its main purpose to gain more expertise in AI and IIoT to be
able to provide more complex solutions to the customers. Our goal is to
cover the whole production chain for mines based on creating unique
digital framework for mining companies.
Q For customers that have deployed elements of the Intelligent Mine,
what have been the greatest challenges and how has this helped your
refine your offering?
A The greatest challenge both for mines and VIST in deploying elements
of the Intelligent Mine project is developing required infrastructure (both
stationary and movable) and keeping the level of the production at the
necessary level. Companies, I guess not only in Russia, should still
believe in the efficiency of autonomous technologies, but they should see
conclusive economics of autonomous equipment.
Q To what extent have you entered the underground market for
autonomous solutions to date or is this part of future plans?
A In VIST during the past several years we thought of underground mines
– as a next, very important step in our development both technological
and commercial. “Going underground” became a trend for many mines,
especially in Russia, due to increasingly complex of mining works and
companies should combine both surface and underground modes. So, to
keep our leading position in the CIS market, it is vital for us to have
respective solutions for underground mines as well. We believe that
having at the same time two active projects with underground majors of
the mining industry Norilsk and Polymetal allows us to gain much more
expertise providing a solid technological level to customers.