Sensemetrics, an industrial internet-of-things (IIoT) and cloud technology company, has announced a co-development and go-to-market partnership with Yieldpoint, a Kingston-based instrumentation company, to venture into the underground mining market.
The companies will initially focus on mines in the Americas and Australasia.
Under the terms of the agreement, Yieldpoint’s d-Tech line of digital sensors has been integrated with the Sensemetrics cloud platform to provide mine operators with actionable data.
The companies will initially focus on mines in the Americas and Australasia
“Together with Yieldpoint, we are bringing cutting-edge expertise and a track record of breakthrough impact to all the key challenges that impact underground mining globally,” Cory Baldwin, president of Sensemetrics, said in a release.
“We are excited to see how we will be able to transform operational performance and deliver step-change productivity improvements across the entire mine lifecycle. The d-Tech platform embeds a microcomputer in every instrument, thereby creating truly smart geotechnical and structural instruments. Combining these smart sensors with the Sensemetrics cloud-based platform results in one of today’s most innovative approaches to underground mining instrumentation.”
Geotechnical instrumentation allows operators to monitor ground control and related parameters, required for safe and optimal mine operations.
While the instruments required vary by mine and can be challenging to manage and maintain, the novel approach developed by Sensemetrics and Yieldpoint can help with some of these issues.
“Having access to real-time sensor data, risk models and enterprise-wide knowledge sharing to address these demands has, up to now, been impractical and costly,” Pierre Ballester, director of business development for Yieldpoint, added.
“This is largely due to the multiple friction points and complexities that are inherent in today’s workflows as data is collected from sensors and transferred to the surface.”
“We are excited to work in partnership with Sensemetrics to remove the friction points and reduce the complexities associated with getting actionable data from the mine face to the surface. Further, by empowering staff to quickly and accurately navigate their complex operating environment, we will put mining customers in a position to drive greater business success.”
Sensemetrics’ monitoring applications have already been successfully adopted at open-pit mines.
“To extend Sensemetrics’ success into underground mining the right partner is needed. Yieldpoint is that partner: their team has worked with some of the world’s largest mining companies and has provided research services to some of the world’s leading institutions,” Baldwin concluded.
The agreement calls for the two companies to co-develop products for an initial three-year period, after which the agreement will automatically renew.
Yieldpoint was originally incorporated as a geotechnical monitoring company and offers a digital product line that leverages IoT technology for geotechnical monitoring.
Sensemetrics is an innovator in the IIoT market and offers the only market-proven cloud-based enterprise software platform that simplifies connectivity and standardizes industrial sensor data.
(This article first appeared in the Canadian Mining Journal)