MINING SOFTWARE
Reach for the sky
Catalysed by the data revolution , investor interest and a strong commodity demand outlook , mining software vendors are thinking big . Dan Gleeson evaluates the sector ’ s overriding trends
There is tangible excitement from those developing and producing software for the mining sector ; they are riding a technology adoption wave they all predicted but has only now come to fruition .
IM attempts to look beyond the industry hype – buoyed by a raft of M & A in this segment in the last 24-36 months – to find out how some of the sector ’ s leaders are making the most of this positive demand scenario .
Optimising on the way to net zero
There are few companies that can compete with Hexagon in the software and sensor stakes , with the Sweden-based company now having a suite of technologies sitting under Hexagon ’ s Mining division that have proven transformational across the decades .
Some of its mine planning solutions have been in existence since the 1970s , evolving with the increase in computing power and learnings that have taken place over the past 50 years .
The founders of the Hexagon Fleet Management System ( FMS ) were key contributors to the very first mining FMS released in the mid-1980s .
Hexagon ’ s Mining division also has one of the very first collision avoidance systems within its offering , a solution it added with the SAFEMine acquisition in 2014 .
“ Simply put , we have that pedigree ,” Dave Goddard , Chief Product Officer , Hexagon ’ s Mining division , told IM . “ That pedigree , context of operations and historical data can continuously be brought back into any modelling that involves a mine site ’ s economics or net present value ( NPV ).”
Goddard , who is less than a year into his new role , is focused on leveraging this historical data – including millions of near-miss collision avoidance data points , hundreds of mine plans and oodles of optimised haul routes – to
Optimising the NPV of the asset in the ground and optimising the activities associated with extraction are two key focus areas for Hexagon ’ s Mining division
generate the industry ’ s most powerful machinelearning algorithms .
Putting these algorithms in the hands of its clients is all part of the wider ‘ data-first ’ strategy Hexagon – with the Power of One ecosystem – is pursuing in all existing and new product development .
This focus is also reflective of the state of the mining market and need to build software with more context .
“ When you start looking across the software ecosystem , much of the focus is on analytics around just one process step of the broader mining value chain ,” Goddard says . “ There is a prevalent theory that if you provide all the data , operations will magically gain insight out of it , yet this is reliant on the person on the end of that data being able to integrate and contextualise everything they are receiving from the platform and action a process on the back of it . “ At Hexagon , we realise this is a big ask .” Not only is the mining industry losing experienced personnel closing in on retirement ;
International Mining | FEBRUARY 2024