The miners and new technology (original) (raw)
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Automation in the Mining Industry: Review of Technology, Systems, Human Factors, and Political Risk
Mining, Metallurgy & Exploration, 2019
In the opinion of these authors, technology alone can never give an organization an edge over competitors or provide an industry step change. However, history has shown that technology applied with correct logistics and strategy makes a significant difference. Never has the minerals industry faced such daunting challenges and been in such need of a step change. Application of autonomous systems has been steadily increasing in the minerals industry. Automation technology has changed the mining value chain from exploration to mineral processing and refining. The future state will only see additional inroads of automation into more processes and the whole system design. To better understand the near-future potential of automation, it is useful to explore and review the current state of automation in minerals development. A review of the state of automation research is given. The review will consider three critical areas: automation technology, system's engineering and management processes around automation, and the role of human factors engineering in automated and semi-automated systems. The review ends with a discussion on the social and political risks of automation in terms of shared value and sustainable development.
Mechanization, Automation, and New Technology in Mining
Designing Ergonomic, Safe, and Attractive Mining Workplaces, 2018
Industry 4.0 offers new possibilities to combine increased productivity with stimulating workplaces in a good work environment. Used correctly, digitalization can create attractive jobs in safe control room environments, which provide space for the employee's full expertise and creativity. This is true also for the mining industry. But, to succeed, it is important to analyze the development from a worker's perspective. What will happen to their work? What skills will be needed in the mine of tomorrow? We must also consider the risks, such as privacy issues, increased stress, and work-life boundaries. These questions must be understood if we are to create workplaces that can attract a young and diverse workforce to tomorrow's mining industry. In this article, we try to illustrate what the new technology can mean for the individual miners. We formulate the notion of Mining 4.0 (Industry 4.0 in the mining industry), where we try to create an image of how the future might look from a miner's perspective and how mining companies may navigate their way to a future that works for all miners. To illustrate the range of possible outcomes, we formulate two scenarios: one utopian and one dystopic. At the end of our article, we bring forward six recommendations that can be considered a beginning of a road map for the human side of Mining 4.0.
Automation in Longwall Coal Mining - A Review
International Robotics & Automation Journal
Coal is one of the most important fossil fuels which are available abundantly around the world and meets a major part of the energy needs. Coal can be extracted in blocks by using longwall coal mining using a mechanized shearer. From the last century, the automation in industry has become one of the powerful forces of the production. This paper highlights the development and improvement of automation in longwall coal mining. This paper aims at reviewing the stage wise development of automation in longwall coal mining. The study also discusses the difficulties involved in automation integration to the older production system and also highlights the keys features such as remote-controlled monitoring operation in longwall coal mining. A brief review of major longwall coal mining automation challenges and several changes which has undergone from last 60 years has been presented in this study.
CBU International Conference Proceedings
The rapid rate of introducing new technology leads to the issue of staff awareness in operating the latest equipment. Many users do not understand how new devices work and how to use the new machines and gadgets. This article presents the results of research aimed at determining the influence of new technology on the technological awareness of mining workers. Surveys and advanced expert interviews have shown that the lack of technical knowledge means the introduced changes are often perceived negatively by staff and that the main reason for this outcome is the absence of effective education. Lack of knowledge means that frequently the effectiveness of the new and technologically advanced machines is marginal. Presented problems due to the high competition in the energy market have a crucial practical significance. The results of this research may be valuable as a source of information and knowledge for companies.
Future mining : workers' skills, identity and gender when meeting changing technology
2008
The aim of this paper is to discuss how to form work and organisations in the mines of the future. The Kiruna underground iron ore mine in the far north of Sweden is used as an example on how technical development affects organisational issues like skills, work identity and gender. Over a period of 50 years one can see a transformation of work from manual underground work to automation and remote control from surface level. What characterised the old underground workface was the close relation between man and the hard rock and with arduous physical work under dangerous conditions. Today, the face miners are located on the seventh level of an office building close to the mine. There is also an emerging, and in many aspects already evident, knowledge transformation - from the old and obsolete physical and tacit knowledge and skills (for example the ability to ‘read the rock') to something new, which can be described as abstract ‘high-tech' knowledge and skills. The modern tech...
2016
This keynote is aimed at creating awareness among mining community on the impetus of trans-disciplinary research and latest technological innovations applicable for mining industries. Latest Exploration and Survey techniques utilising GIS, light weight laser scanning systems etc including radar applications may be considered. Automation in underground mining machinery and innovations in heavy earth moving machinery for large scale open cast mining are also appears to be worthy of wide utilisation along with latest Information and Communication Technology (ICT) for mining as a drop in ocean of attempts for make in India concept a reality.
INDUSTRY 4.0 IN COAL MINING: a comparative study between a traditional and a 4.0 operation
International Joint Conference on Industrial Engineering and Operations Management Proceedings
This article aims to analyze the benefits of implementing digital technologies of industry 4.0 in the context of coal mining. The study uses primary bibliography on the theme of industry 4.0 in mining, seeking to verify the advantages in the use of technologies in the industry and to create a conceptual framework to guide the case study. Two mining plants from the same company are the units of analysis. The first follows the historical evolution of the mining process but stopped evolving in the 1980s. The second is a new unit, planned and built within the new mining concepts, linking to them some digital technologies of industry 4.0. In this context, we sought to analyze whether there were improvements in product quality, in the efficiency of the process and in the safety of the operation in the plant that uses digital technologies. This survey was conducted through interviews with managers from both units. The results indicate that the plant with digital technologies has a more homogeneous final product and that it meets the customer's specifications more efficiently, the unit process is linear, safer, and more sustainable concerning the traditional unit.
Modernisation of the underground coal mining sector in Colombia – a proposal from the academy
Mining has provided major developments and resources to countries that produce raw materials, but in developing countries, such as Colombia, there is little technology and research in the area of mining processes. This has serious consequences on aspects such as worker safety, environmental impact and mining production. Thus, in Colombia, for underground coal mining, statistics on deaths, accidents and damage to the environment are high. This paper presents the proposal of a research project between the Universidad Pedagógica y Tecnológica de Colombia (UPTC) and the Centro Nacional de Minería del Servicio Nacional de Aprendizaje (SENA) that seeks to reduce the technological and research gap of the sector in underground coal mining in Colombia. The proposed project highlights the importance of developing scientific research processes and the application of industrial automation processes in small and medium‐sized coal mines, taking into account the needs of safety, environmental impa...
International Mining | SEPTEMBER 2019, 2019
The coal sector has been front and centre in the climate change debate since the last COP meeting in Paris, in 2015, with several high-profile mining company investors exiting registers – or pledging to do so – unless firms take drastic carbon emission reduction measures. This has seen Rio Tinto gradually sell off its entire coal portfolio and other miners, such as Anglo American and Glencore, agree to curb thermal coal output. BHP is also weighing a thermal coal exit, according to the latest reports from Bloomberg. It is ironic that the sector bearing the brunt of climate change activism is also one of the leaders when it comes to technological innovation. JSW’s Artur Dyczko says the company’s recent research visit to Australia “was aimed at seeing a practical demonstration of the application of modern longwall production systems together with their remote monitoring, in the Australian mining environment, as systems significantly improving efficiency which may be potentially used in JSW’s conditions”
Tech paper Mine mechanisation safety &productivity SKM HZL
Minerals constitute the back-bone of economic growth of any nation and India has been eminently endowed with this gift of nature. Over the past 50 years, there has been a steady increase in mining activities. Today there are over 594 coal mines and more than 6,000 metaliferrous mines and 41 oil projects, excluding the offshore installations. Mining activities in the country however remained primitive in nature and modest in scale until the last decade of 19th century. With the progress in exploitation of minerals, safety of persons employed became a matter of concern. The death rate for every 1000 persons in mines in 1894 was as high as 3.04. In 1895, the Government of India initiated steps to frame legislative measures for safety of workmen. In 1897, in the first major mining disaster 52 persons were killed in a shaft accident in the Kolar Goldfields followed by the Khost Coal Mine disaster in Baluchistan (now in Pakistan) killing 47 persons. State intervention in respect of safety and health of mine workers has brought about significant fall in accidents causing fatalities and injuries. The fatality rate in respect of per thousand persons employed in coal mines fell from a high of 1.33 on a ten yearly average during 1931-40 to 0.33 during 1991-99. Unfortunately, however, there has been no appreciable reduction in fatal accident rates in coal mines during the last two decades. India's safety statistics reported more than59 deaths (18 underground) in coal mines in calendar year 2012, and 294 serious injuries. The same is true in case of non-coal mines where the fatality figure has remained static at about 0.3. Non-coal mines have fared better with 25 deaths (4 underground) and 32 serious injuries in 2012.