HIGH PROFILE
Deswik extends the Sandvik Digital Mining Technologies reach into mine planning and true end-to-end optimisation
Making an impact across the value chain
Digital Mining Technologies division affecting change in mine planning and design to optimisation and analytics, to autonomous execution
Back in December 2021, Sandvik announced a bold strategy: to lead the industry development of underground sustainability and productivity solutions in electrification, automation, digitalisation and end-to-end optimisation.
One of the actions it took towards this was the creation of the Digital Mining Technologies division within the Sandvik Mining business area, which, at that point, included Sandvik Mining automation solutions and the Newtrax telemetry and collision avoidance solutions.
Deswik, a provider of mine planning software, soon came under this umbrella when Sandvik acquired it in April 2022.
Today, Sandvik Digital Mining Technologies brings together a portfolio of solutions across the mining value chain from planning and design to optimisation and analytics, to autonomous execution. Deswik serves as a natural upstream entry point to this ecosystem, extending Sandvik’ s reach into mine planning and enabling true end-toend optimisation.
At this point, in terms of electrification, the company was very much leading the way. The acquisition of Artisan Vehicle Systems was embedded into its battery-electric thinking, with the company claiming it had the largest active battery-electric vehicle fleet running underground. It solidified this leadership position by launching the largest battery-electric underground truck, the TH665B, in 2022, and announcing it had a trial lined up in Western Australia.
When it came to automation, 22 years of AutoMine ® installations had the company at the top of this market. The company had just celebrated its largest ever AutoMine deal with Codelco, too.
In terms of digitalisation, the addition of Deswik, which at that point came with more than 10,000 software licences, propelled the company up the mine planning and scheduling charts to – if not a leading position – at least a top-tier provider. This was complemented by Newtrax’ s expanding market share.
End-to-end optimisation was the major area that needed addressing.
Four years ago, the company was limited in this process through a semi-siloed approach: some of its solutions were‘ open’ and talking to other parts of the value chain that Sandvik did not serve through its stated interoperability policy; others were only talking to platforms within Sandvik’ s ecosystem.
This approach, to be fair to Sandvik, was common among the industry.
Having recently visited two of the cornerstone companies acquired as part of this ongoing drive, IM can now report that the Digital Mining Technologies division is making significant progress, with that end-toend optimisation leadership position in sight.
The optimisation glue
“ The Digital Mining Technologies division has now grown to support itself and is being measured against all other divisions within Sandvik Mining,” Riku Pulli, President of Sandvik’ s Digital Mining Technologies division, explained during a tour of Deswik and Universal Field Robots’( UFR) facilities in Brisbane, Australia, in March.
“ I see us as the‘ glue’ between many of the divisions, optimising the various equipment and solutions we provide the mining sector,” he said.
Pulli made this clear at the 2025 Capital Markets Day when he talked up a doubledigit growth outlook to 2030 for the division, along with strong leverage for Sandvik equipment and the aftermarket business.
The slide that accompanied his remarks also reflected on a 30 % compound annual growth rate from 2019-2024 – a period that included the acquisitions of Newtrax and Deswik, as well as Polymathian and UFR.
Where Newtrax allowed Sandvik Mining to further strengthen the company’ s“ leading position in areas related to automation and digitalisation”, Deswik increased the company’ s upstream mining coverage, enabling opportunities for that all-important end-to-end optimisation.
The Polymathian solutions for automated decision making and process optimisation further complemented the Deswik offering, while the most recent addition – UFR – helped to“ increase the addressable market for Sandvik by making AutoMine fully OEMagnostic and further strengthen … the market position of Sandvik AutoMine”.
Talking about Deswik, specifically, Pulli reflected on how the acquisition had opened a“ new area in the mining value chain” Sandvik was not previously serving.
This part of the mining value chain is highly sought after, as observers and investors would have taken note of with recent high-profile acquisitions of RPMGlobal and Micromine by Caterpillar and Weir, respectively.
Deswik’ s platforms, which span mine design, scheduling and planning, are now in use at over 1,330 sites across the globe. These software solutions are complemented by more than 200 mining engineers that act as consultants for the business, who interact with the software developers to ensure solutions are customer driven and have a basis in reality.
Andrew Pyne, CEO of Deswik, told IM:“ Consultancy is a big part of the value proposition we deliver to our customers.
28 International Mining | JULY 2026