Epiroc says its Mobilaris Mining Intelligence (MMI) is set to help improve decision making at Assmang’s Black Rock underground manganese mine in South Africa.

The mining original equipment manufacturer said this will be the first installation of the decision support solution in a room and pillar mine.

Pierre Becker, General Manager Black Rock mine, said MMI will help to increase production and utilisation at the mine. “The solution enables an unprecedented opportunity for mining personnel to make right decisions faster than ever before,” he said.

Through MMI, the Black Rock Mine control room will evolve to a source of real-time production data fully integrated with planning, task dispatch, machine telemetry data, mobile operator clients and a layer of analytics to collect and monitor insights and key performance indicators for the mine production, Epiroc said. “The project is expected to yield significant improvements in employee safety, process efficiency and overall production,” the company added.

MMI enables superior situational awareness and is designed to visualise and support mining operation in all its complexity, in real-time, according to Epiroc. It provides a 3D real-time information model where the position of machines, vehicles and personnel are recognised, and other vital information sources like shift planning, machine and production data are presented.

Andrew Main, Regional Business Line Manager, Underground Rock Excavation division for Southern Africa, Epiroc South Africa, said: “Epiroc will support Black Rock’s business improvement processes with the MMI solution. The globally acclaimed Situational Awareness together with Short Interval Control package will take their operations to the next level of performance gains.”

System installation is expected in June, Epiroc said.