Sandvik Mining and Rock Solutions has launched a Technology Centre in Harare, Zimbabwe set to assist the country’s mining industry on its exciting journey into the digital future.
According to Sandvik Technology Centre manager, Hosea Molife the facility’s key aim is to use digital technology to make mines safer and more productive. It will work with technology-focused customers in underground hard-rock mines locally to raise the productivity bar
“Our starting point was an Optimine implementation for the monitoring and tracking of underground mobile equipment and customer support for a MySandvik project. The hardware is installed on the equipment together with the software to gather and transmit operational data, allowing mine management to view equipment location and productivity at any time. The data is automatically analysed giving the customer decision making dashboards,” said Molife.
Digital journey
He explains that hardware is installed on the equipment together with the software to gather and transmit operational data, allowing mine management to view equipment location and productivity at any time. The data is automatically analysed giving the customer decision making dashboards.
Ian Bagshaw, Sandvik Mining and Rock Solutions territory manager, says the technologies employed by the company essentially ‘take the lid off’ the mine, revealing vital real-time information such as tons mines and holes drilled. The Technology Centre can make use of various Sandvik solutions to render the data useful to the customer. These include MySandvik for equipment monitoring using up-to-date information, Optimine for integrating resources and optimising processes and Automine for automating mining activities.
“There is a strong safety element in the digital journey, as machine automation can help keep operators away from the workface and other potentially hazardous areas of the mine.The beauty of our facility is that it can be quickly ramped up as demand grows, allowing us to serve a growing customer base as mines see the practical value of applying digital technology,” said Mr. Ian Bagshaw.
