Mining’s old guard needs strong medicine
A new report details subpar investor returns in the mining industry over the last decade, particularly big cap diversified companies which have not adapted to new realities.
South African industrial companies counts on digital technology in order to meet Mandela Mining Precinct, launched in September last year, while Finn-Russian ZYFRA Group is bringing its IIoT and AI solutions to South African mining industry.
On January 15-17 Pavel Rastopshin, Managing Director of ZYFRA Group and Dmitry Klebanov, Business Development Director VIST Group (ZYFRA subsidiary) are meeting representatives of South African leading mining companies and automotive solutions providers.
By the end of the past year Finnish-Russian biggest digital solutions vendor ZYFRA has reached $30 mln revenue facilitating industrial manufacturers in Europe and Asia with AI and IoT based solutions as well as autonomous vehicles. In the end of 2018 the company has announced its plans to enter markets of South Africa as early as 2019. The current meeting is the primary step to its fulfillment.
South African economy has finally moved beyond the country’s second recession since 1994 and grew by 2,2% in the third quarter of 2018. As the STATS SA reports manufacturing was the main driver of positive growth in the third quarter. The industry grew by 7,5%, largely as a result of increased production of basic iron and steel, metal products and machinery; wood and paper; petroleum products; and motor vehicles. This is the largest jump in manufacturing production since the second quarter of 2016.
About 77% of all mining accidents resulting in a fatality have occurred to involve human factor in operating with equipment. Digital solutions implemented could allow to reduce human involvement in a dangerous mining process.
On the contrary the mining industry was the biggest detractor from economic growth, declining by 8,8%. Lower production levels were recorded for platinum group metals, iron ore, gold, copper and nickel. An increase in the percentage of digital manufactures will allow to keep economics on the positive field through the technological advancement enhancing efficiency.
“Smart manufacturing (the term refers to IoT and AI) is projected to grow noticeably in the 3 to 5 years. Recent surveys showed 92% of senior manufacturing executives believe that “Smart Factory” digital technologies such as artificial intelligence will allow them to improve their degrees of productivity and empower their staff to work more intelligently. Some even account for smart manufacturing market volume to increase to over $320 billion by 2020,” said Mr. Pavel Rastopshin.
Moreover, digital solutions implemented could allow to reduce human involvement in a dangerous mining process. In an end-to-end smart mining, you move all personnel from autonomous operating zone to safe remote control posts and leave robots to carry out all the hazardous works on themselves. Counted in numbers that could reduce fatal cases down to zero level. According to the International mining fatality review there were more than 2500 death cases in 2018 alone. Approximately 77% of all mining accidents resulting in a fatality have occurred to involve human factor in operating with equipment.
“Because it is so capital intensive, you need that equipment to be operating at optimal efficiency all the time: we could be monitoring what that machine is doing, how much rock is it loading, where is it taking it. We could have real-time info on that rock movement. We also need people to be moved from where they have to face a rock, hight preassure or temperature, or any othe dangers”, – says Navin Singh, co-director of the Mandela Mining Precinct
“South Africa is minig and industrial center of global importance. The need for digitalization is really high here as the country tends to solve various tasks, namely to increase production efficiency, cut costs, improve the quality of the final product and to save working places at the same time,” – Rastopshin explained.
By now the company offers global market its Real-time machine data collection system MDCplus that can be used to track jobs, operations, work centres, scrap, costs, downtime and people. It also provides its clients with Industrial AI-solutions that can either predict quality and product properties, or recommend process settings and material usage. The company is applying cutting edge data science combined with industrial expertise to provide end-to-end solutions for optimizing production speed, quality, and costs for industries such as machinery, metallurgy, oil and gas and mining.
Back at home ZYFRA’s clients are giants like Gazprom, Chelpipe, NLMK Group and United Engine Corporation.
ZYFRA, founded in November 2017, currently operates in Finland, China, Russia, Bulgaria, and India, and its platform connected over 7,000 CNC machines across the countries. By the end of 2018 more than 200 production facilities are equipped with its products.
