PROCESS CONTROL
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True process control
The power of digital twins in mineral processing control is only just beginning to be realised – with AI playing a central role, reports Paul Moore
Mineral processing monitoring and automation is rapidly moving far beyond just control rooms with grey DCS screens – fundamentally, instead of just seeing real time data from sensors, is the realisation of the power of what you can achieve with that data in areas like predictive and proactive maintenance. IM Editorial Director, Paul Moore sat down with Arttu-Matti Matinlauri, Metso Vice President, Minerals Segment Digital, at the company’ s HQ in Espoo, Finland, to try to understand the evolution that is going on in mineral concentrators today.
By turning vast streams of data into actionable insights, digitalisation is reshaping the way minerals processing is understood and optimised – and thus driving a more efficient, sustainable future for the industry. Metso’ s Data-driven Performance Services offer solutions for efficient information flow between the customer and Metso to improve reliability and productivity of customer’ s assets. Matinlauri says these solutions enhance informed decision-making and actiontaking on-site by combining data analytics with OEM expertise in the form of remote monitoring and data-driven expert support.
Data generation and collection enables algorithm development to monitor equipment health and process performance. Metso has developed such algorithms to identify issues and predict failures on connected customer equipment. As an OEM with decades of accumulated know-how in mining equipment and minerals processing, Metso embeds this unique knowledge into
algorithm development to increase customer value.
“ The starting point of Data-driven Performance Services is the combination of data analytics, artificial intelligence and OEM expertise. This technical baseline built on decades of resolved incidents on Metso equipment enables us to scale our knowledge for a global customer base,” says Matinlauri.“ Our predictive analytics for condition monitoring detect equipment-related issues, and through this service, we help customers mitigate issues and prevent failures to improve availability and reliability.”
When an issue is identified through condition monitoring, Metso’ s remote monitoring experts from a regional Performance Center start data-driven investigation to prepare an actionable issue resolution plan for the customer. When meaningful, they collaborate with a global Performance Center network as well as Metso’ s global Technical Support.
Matinlauri emphasised that the reality of what you achieve with process plant data is a partnership journey together with mining customers – taking them from a position of‘ do I need all these optional sensors’ to the sensor data output and its interpretation becoming an inherent part of lifecycle and maintenance savings and efficiency. He
M Editorial Director Paul Moore( left) with Arttu-Matti Matinlauri, Metso Vice President, Minerals Segment Digital
added that the challenge is that you can only really understand the value of these systems once they’ re running; and when you have the people and the software in place that can interpret it in a useful way. After the implementation many customers realise the changes they can do to their standard operating procedures thus bringing efficiency for example to daily inspections.
“ Today, some instrumentation is factory installed as standard, and some of it is retrofitted. Some of the optional retrofits of today are ultimately going to become standard instrumentation. And that’ s because you move from sensors being a process control only thing only to how does this actually impact my total cost of ownership and my lifecycle costs, because I’ m able to use it to identify maintenance issues or reliability issues. And I think that’ s the realisation or the wave that we’ re now starting to see in the marketplace.”
Maintenance does still reside as a second tier of interest after actual operations.“ But that is changing and from our side that’ s also starting to impact how we approach instrumentation on our equipment and just as importantly, how do we communicate the purpose of the instrumentation?”
Cost is another issue – if a sensor costs $ 5,000 instead of $ 500 it might still be seen as an unnecessary optional extra despite the insights it can bring. Again, this is if the customer is only looking at it from the operations perspective and not necessarily realizing the benefits it could bring to. the maintenance side. Another aspect of instrumentation is ensuring adequate maintenance and upkeep for the actual instruments themselves maintain accuracy and effectiveness. Sensors can become caked in crud and dust. This might be a problem when you are dealing with optical instruments, lasers and X-Ray sensors. Condition monitoring of sensors is also not just about the mechanical aspect – often inaccuracies or problems are due to communication errors or I / O interface issues. Mineral concentrators do not always have the high bandwidth wireless connectivity people assume.
Many of the world’ s biggest mines have moved responsibility for process control to integrated remote operations centres – often hundreds or even thousands of kilometres from the actual plant. High level decisions are now taken in IROCs, with the onsite control room really just an emergency back up in case of loss of connection. Is that driving greater demand for data solutions as well?
Matinlauri:“ I think it is still a mixed situation. What I’ ve seen so far in some of the ROCs is that it’ s more of a lift and shift from site to remote and it’ s still operations driven – the maintenance and reliability teams are still at the site.” He adds:“ I think that’ s the next step that needs to happen. For example, we are lookig at options to bring Metso into the customers’ ROCs. If you think about it, we have field service at customer sites all the time. Going forward, instead of having Metso Performance Centers only at our own offices, for large mines – we could have Metso condition monitoring experts at the ROC. Those experts can also have our support network behind them, and access to a vast pool of
International Mining | JANUARY 2026