Can This Technology Improve Local Mining Productivity?

Digitalising mining is not the easiest of tasks, but there is a company that is trying to change that.

- David McKay

Former Gold Fields CEO Ian Cockerill was scathing at a recent mining conference regarding the reticence of the SA mining sector to embrace new technology through the years. For too long, it had done its work “in the dark”, only finding out the results of its efforts a month later and therefore being unable to respond to problems with much effect.

It was “a dinosaur”, he said.

That’s as damning as it comes.

To be fair to SA mining, however, much of its gold and some of its platinum mining is located deep underground; it is also highly labour-intensive. Therefore, digitalising mining activities is not the easiest of tasks; not when compared to open pit mining, where monitoring and visibility is much easier.

Just ask Gold Fields. Try as it might, the company cannot seem to extract a decent margin from its South Deep mine, west of Johannesburg. That is despite rounds and rounds of re-engineering initiatives, shift changes, and import of costly consultants.