The likelihood of mining companies being able to launch a zero-entry mine will take a bit longer to bring about, a panel at FOM Denver heard.
Panellists were quick to emphasise that technologies required for turning an underground mine into a zero-entry mine were still far behind, and it would be more likely to see an open-pit mine achieving this milestone more quickly.
"Underground mines are half a decade behind," Vale's Manager of Integrated Innovation Anthony Downs said. "can split underground and surface mining into two categories, and technologies are very different in maturity and capability. We have underground mines in Canada, with LTE underground which empowers autonomous equipment, but there are other challenges. There is no GPS down there, normal surface solutions aren't there."
Part of the delay in bringing technologies up to speed in underground mines compared to open-pit is due to the OEMs, he said.
"OEMs focus more on surface mining, because there's more of an opportunity to sell units," he said.
"What we see is quite often there is no interoperability [between machines," he said. "We need to share that information, correlate it and take some actionable items to drive innovation."
OEMs may need an external push, such as an industry standard to ensure that all machines are able to communicate with each other, Ash said.
"Unless there is a mandated standard that your machine has to speak a certain language, we're not going to see progress," he said.
The lack of interoperability between equipment and OEM products is also a major obstacle towards bringing mining towards more zero-entry mines, Nokia's head of energy for North America Kenneth Rabedeau said.
Micromine's Head of Business Unit Erich Guevara acknowledged that there has been quite a lot of progress regarding connectivity in comparison to where the industry was 10 years ago. But mine technologies are still very weak in generating the amount of data required to allow for effective analysis.
"Specifically when it comes to underground," he said. "It's still a bit weak for zero entry."
For Vale's Downs, a major challenge blocking the way for zero-entry mines is the question of required maintenance.
"When you take an underground mine, there will be a breakdown requiring maintenance," he said. "Underground mines are deeper, they're hotter, and they're potentially wetter. It would be great at some point in time to have an autonomous mine, but we still need a lot of infrastructure in place to send someone to recover a broken vehicle."
The pace of innovation on this front in the industry will remain slow so long as the price of equipment is so high, Downs said.
"It's not a cheap proposition to get an upper class haul truck to be autonomous," he said. He does not see major mining companies changing their habits and going with start-up firms instead of OEMs.
"Most of the miners really want to stick with the OEMs, and most of the OEMs have a price of entry that means you really need to have a strong business case to get it over the line," he said.
Innovation will be critical, however, in attracting more workers, particularly for an industry which has struggled in recent years to bring in younger employees.
"If you're trying to attract new people to come into the industry, if you adopt technologies they might want to work on such as automation, and analysing big data more effectively, this will help attract people. It will also help mining companies think of new ways to make a zero-entry mine a reality," Nokia's Rabedeau said.
