CANADIAN TECHNOLOGY
One of the now nine Prairie Machine boring miners at Mosaic ' s K3 potash operation
Counting on Canada
Canada ’ s mining technology and services specialists , especially those based in historic mining hubs like Sudbury and North Bay , continue to play an important role in mines both domestically and around the world , reports Paul Moore
The importance of the innovation and R & D that has been born out of the Canadian mining supplier industry is well reflected in the scale of acquisitions in recent years . This is especially true in the fast growing digital , software and battery-powered equipment spaces . Epiroc acquired surface mine wireless connectivity major 3D-P in Calgary and diesel to battery electric vehicle conversion specialist FVT Research in Vancouver / Sudbury in 2021 ; while Sandvik had acquired Montreal-based Newtrax in 2019 . In 2018 , Seequent , a world leader in visual data science , signed an agreement to acquire Geosoft , the Canadian geoscience software company headquartered in Toronto ; Seequent was then itself acquired by US company Bentley Systems . Weir Group acquired Motion Metrics in 2021 , the leading Canada-based developer of innovative Artificial Intelligence ( AI ) and 3D rugged Machine Vision Technology . These are just a few examples among many .
Major partnerships have also appeared – mining fatigue management major Fatigue Science , based in Vancouver is now working with Hexagon ’ s mining division . Wabtec recently announced that its Digital Mine organisation is collaborating with SMS Equipment to supply and support the Wabtec Collision Awareness System ( CAS ) to Canadian mining companies . Blasting and explosives leader BME , a member of South Africa-based Omnia Group , in 2019 set up a joint venture in Canada with Consbec – BME Mining Canada .
In bulk handling , Toronto ’ s Kinperium Industries recently announced that it had acquired K . A . Group , consisting of Canada ’ s K-Tec Earthmovers ( K-Tec ) & US company Ashland Industries . Kinperium partnered with the owners and management of K-Tec & Ashland to acquire a majority stake of the company . K-Tec & Ashland are industry leading manufacturers of pull-pan earthmoving scrapers and implements for the construction , mining , and agriculture end-markets . The two scraper brands previously joined forces in a 2020 merger , providing for production facilities in Rosenort , Manitoba , Canada and Ashland , Wisconsin , USA .
Plus , the importance of Canada has also been reflected in incoming investment – recent examples including Sandvik ’ s new Surrey , BC facility ; Austin Engineering ’ s new Fort McMurray hub and Liebherr ’ s new Sudbury location . Finally , Canadian government support , both national and at province level , is an important driver of the domestic METS economy . In 2021 , with funding provided by the Government of Canada ’ s Strategic Innovation Fund , partners from across Canada led by the Centre for Excellence in Mining Innovation ( CEMI ) launched the Mining Innovation Commercialization Accelerator ( MICA ) Network . MICA is a national innovation ecosystem initiative designed to modernise mining and improve its productivity and environmental performance , strengthen the Canadian mineral supply chain , and increase the domestic and export sales of Canadian innovators .
And of course there is the investment in the mines themselves by the big players – just to name one example , Newcrest recently closed its acquisition of Pretivm Resources and its Brucejack gold operation in the Golden Triangle region of British Columbia . This followed its acquisition of 70 % of the Red Chris copper-gold mine , also in BC , in 2019 .
Fatigue monitoring and management
Fatigue Science , the Vancouver-based global leader in predictive fatigue analytics and information systems for mining and now a partner with Hexagon , recently announced the results of two recent studies that quantified the significant improvement in mine productivity resulting from the implementation of Readi , its fatigue management software . Two major mining customers , a leading gold mine in central Mexico and a large copper mine in the southwestern United States , agreed to participate in the analyses , which were conducted independently of each other . Results revealed that operators were 3.2 % to 3.5 % more productive when their ReadiScore fatigue prediction indicated low fatigue relative to operators who were highly fatigued .
Supervisors at the two mines leveraged Readi ’ s predictive analytics daily to make task allocation decisions , ensuring the right workers performed the highest value tasks at the most productive times . ReadiAnalytics also enabled HSE and Operations management teams to reduce aggregate fatigue levels by over 20 %. Consequently , workers are not only performing better at certain tasks , but they are also showing up for work less fatigued and more productive from the start .
Together , these findings the company says reveal a strong and quantifiable return on investment for Readi customers , with a payback period of under two months . “ Scientists and industrial hygienists have long researched , documented and advocated the worker productivity benefits of fatigue management , as well as its obvious safety benefits . Now , we have objective data proving and quantifying these impacts in real world settings ,” says Andrew Morden , President & CEO of Fatigue Science . “ For the first time , mining , transportation and industrial firms can clearly see that our predictive fatigue management technology delivers real value to their bottom-line operations , in addition to the safety and employee well-being benefits .”
Nearly 600 haul truck drivers and shovel operators across the two mines participated in the analyses , with over 140,000 unique duty hours analysed for fatigue . Readi ’ s biomathematical algorithms created hour-by-hour personalised fatigue predictions for each worker on duty , based on data from connected wearables . These data were then combined with telematics data from haul trucks and shovels , allowing those metrics to be analysed alongside productivity measures such as Dig Rate and Spot Time .
Modelling overall benefit , analysts determined approximately US $ 6 million in annual return to
50 International Mining | APRIL 2022