Sandvik is set to deliver one of the most comprehensive digital offerings globally at Hindustan Zinc’s Sindesar Khurd (SK) zinc-lead-silver mine in Rajasthan, India.

The company will use its OEM-independent OptiMine® digital solutions to ensure all required infrastructure and platforms are established to achieve world-class mining safety, efficiency and productivity, it said.

The system includes a comprehensive set of features for short interval control of the underground operations, including: OptiMine Monitoring, Location Tracking and Mine Visualization, Scheduler, Task Management and OptiMine Analytics, the latter with IBM Watson IoT. The system will be commissioned in 2019.

For this programme, Sandvik is partnering with Newtrax Technologies, which will deliver personnel tracking with cap lamps, tracking and telemetry data for the entire mobile underground fleet, including non-Sandvik equipment, numbering more than 150 drills, loaders, trucks and other equipment. The Newtrax offering will be seamlessly integrated with the Sandvik OptiMine digital platform creating an integrated mine management solution at the SK mine.

Patrick Murphy, President Product Area Rock Drills and Technologies at Sandvik Mining and Rock Technology, said: “Sandvik OptiMine modules can be combined as needed to build up the required functionality and to optimise mining operations. With open interfaces, the solution can also be integrated to other mine IT systems. This interoperability is crucial in enabling our customers to leverage the full value of digitalisation.

“Vedanta Hindustan Zinc has a vision of what the mine of the future will look like, and we’re excited to collaborate with them to make it happen at SK mine. The capability of this system will be virtually unmatched globally in underground hard-rock mining in terms of both scope and scale.”

Sunil Duggal, CEO at Hindustan Zinc, said: “We at Hindustan Zinc are leveraging digital solutions to improve our availability, utilisation and productivity at the SK Mine. With OptiMine, we will be able to plan, schedule and monitor overall operations in real time. This will add major value and increase our productivity, eliminating bottlenecks and allowing us to measure and monitor our key performance indicators in real time, proactively addressing problems before they occur.”

Hindustan Zinc is one of the world’s largest integrated producers of zinc and among leading global lead and silver producers. Its core business comprises of mining and smelting of zinc and lead along with captive power generation. It has a metal production capacity of more than 1 Mt/y with lead-zinc mines in Rampura Agucha and Sindesar Khurd; and key modern smelting complexes in Chanderiya and Dariba, all in Rajasthan, India.

SK Mine is a highly mechanised underground mine with an ore production capacity of 5.5 Mt/y. The mine’s products are zinc and lead concentrate and the mining method used is blasthole open stoping.

OptiMine is a digital platform for analysing and optimising mining production and processes. It integrates all relevant data into one source, delivering both real-time and predictive insights to improve operations. OptiMine is open, scalable, and adaptable to automated and manual applications.

OptiMine Analytics, with IBM Watson IoT, is the next generation of OptiMine that transforms data into process improvement via predictive insights and actionable dashboards embedded into operation management systems. The solution is part of the digital partnership between Sandvik Mining and Rock Technology and IBM and is backed by Sandvik and IBM digital experts around the globe.