digital technologies Archives - International Mining

Sandvik Mining and Rock Technology, in an effort to speed up rock drill innovations, has opened a new Rock Drills Innovation Center in Tampere, Finland.

Announced during day one of its Innovation in Mining event this week, the centre will introduce state-of-the-art production and testing facilities for this core Sandvik technology. It will be home to extensive rock knowledge and drilling technology expertise, creating a hub for innovation, the company says. The centre will also complement Sandvik’s existing leading drilling technology competence centre, consisting of an R&D centre, an underground test mine with laboratories, a modern factory environment and university cooperation.

IM put some questions to Timo Laitinen, Vice President of the Rock Drills business unit, to find out more about the €18 million ($21 million) investment.

IM: How will the new innovation centre help the Rock Drills business unit more rapidly develop new products?

TL: We wanted to bring all key functions needed in the development and production of rock drills under one roof. This makes communication between different functions more effective and enhances cross-functional work when developing new products.

Also, as reliability is the most important characteristic in rock drills – and the key feature of Sandvik rock drills – based on our recent customer survey, we increased our durability testing capacity. Now we can do even more endurance testing in a shorter calendar time.

Thirdly, our factory investments speed up prototype production, minimising waiting times between the iteration rounds. All these speed up time to market.

IM: What new technology, expertise, innovation, etc will you be leveraging to speed up the R&D and product development pipeline?

TL: In addition to what I mentioned above, we utilise a Lean & Agile methodology in our R&D with increased customer involvement, transparency and cross-functional cooperation. As Sandvik’s drilling equipment development, as well as digital technology development, happens for the most part here in Tampere at the same site, we can leverage that work for rock drill development too. Digital technology helps read data from Sandvik drilling equipment and service operations around the world, which we utilise to create even better rock drills. Sandvik’s expertise in machining solutions has helped us to integrate advanced quality assurance solutions in our production system. This generates valuable information for rock drill research and development.

IM: Will the Rock Drills business unit have a designated area of the Tampere Test Mine to test prototypes? Was the division previously using the existing test mine facilities?

TL: We have always had a certain designated area in our test mine for rock drill testing. With this investment program for the Rock Drills Innovation Center, we did build a new area in the test mine for this purpose with increased safety and functionality, more capacity and more space.

IM: In terms of R&D, what areas will the innovation centre focus on? What problems/challenges are your customers continuously talking about that you hope to address with this new facility?

TL: Drilling the holes for explosives comes first in the drill & blast production cycle, followed by the other phases of the cycle. Therefore, it was not a surprise to us when the customer survey result was that ‘reliability’ was the most important feature of a rock drill; followed by productivity and operating cost per metre. In addition to further developing these features in Sandvik rock drills, digital technology is sneaking into our rock drills. Our Rock Pulse technology is a prime example of new technology, which helps our customers drill more, better and at lower cost.

BHP, to more effectively ramp up its use of digital technologies, has opened the first of its ‘digital factories’ in Brisbane, Australia.

Instead of having digital projects delivered by multiple parts of its business, the factory will create a unified ‘community of practice’ among technical roles, according to Rag Udd, BHP Acting Chief Technology Officer.

“The new hubs will abandon the traditional hardware-centric approach to innovation and will help us maximise the use of cloud technologies for rapid digital development in an enhanced digital environment,” he said.

An example of that comes from the company’s coal business where it is launching its “first digital factory”.

Udd explained: “The coal mined from Caval Ridge needs to go through a processing plant. Typically, for every 100 t that enters the plant, around 58 ts of sellable product comes out the back-end. In our digital factory trial, we set the team a challenge of improving this yield using just 12 months’ worth of historical data.”

The team quickly created an algorithm that told the company what the optimal setting for the plant was, based on the blend of coal coming from the mine, according to Udd.

“There is more to do, but this will help us improve our yields and increase the utilisation of our processing facility,” he said. “This is the very definition of productivity: a low cost way to markedly improve an output.”

In the future, BHP hopes to see much more of this type of innovation, according to Udd.

“Our sites are expected to benefit from the rapid deployment of reliable solutions that make their lives easier, minimising variability and unplanned outages,” he said. “The factory will focus on projects that can be delivered quickly, where minimal onsite infrastructure is required and where the return on investment is many multiples of the initial outlay.”

While BHP has started in coal in Brisbane, it plans to also launch digital factories in Chile, North America and Western Australia, according to Udd.

“They will partner with our operations to help solve asset-specific problems,” he said. “Struggling with a well performance issue in the Gulf of Mexico? Speak to your local factory and see if machine learning can provide some insight. Conveyor belt reliability issues in Chile? Let’s see if your ‘digital foreman’ can run some advanced analytics over data from the sensors.”

He concluded: “Other industries have shown us that this model works. With the right people and the right operating model set up, I am confident that we can bring an exciting new element to the way we solve operational problems, and in doing so rapidly create real and lasting value for BHP.”