The digital economy is breaking the mould of many antiquated industries. Take the mining industry, for instance. The industry that was once perceived archaic is now welcoming the use of various technological advances with open arms (through additional expenditures) to attain new heights in terms of performance across the entire value chain, from mine to mill. According to a McKinsey report, an international consulting company, the mining industry’s CAPEX has increased by 33 percent from 2004 to 2014, with personnel costs rising by 24 percent, and the total operating expenses by 90 percent. It is only a matter of time when the use of artificial intelligence, robotics process automation, internet of things (IoT), powerful analytics, and drone tech will become the new normal in the mining industry. And, taking us one step closer towards this reality every day is the Finnish company, Zyfra.

ENABLERS OF MINING DIGITAL TRANSFORMATION

Zyfra is changing the status quo of the mining industry that has long resided on manual methods and practices. With a firm belief that an efficient digital makeover is the secret harpoon of any industry’s success, Zyfra develops AI and IIoT-based solutions, along with autonomous mining equipment for the heavy industry.

Discussing the various stages of the industry’s transformation, Pavel Rastopshin, managing director of Zyfra, notes, “It all began in the early 1990s when the satellite navigation technologies developed for the military (GPS, GLONASS) became widely used in various industries, including mining.” Then, the birth of the first fleet management system for surface mining and the rapid development of GIS technologies to build 3D models of mineral deposits led to the onset of geological modelling and mine planning systems. Later on, throughout the later part of the 90s, the digital transformation processes kept expanding to cover more and more mining tasks. These solutions gradually merged to form a complex operation and safety management system for surface mines.

“Zyfra Mining has been at the forefront of these technological developments since the beginning of this revolution,” says Rastopshin. And banking on this longstanding expertise and experience, Zyfra can help mining companies stay atop of every stage of the digital journey for mining processes.

“We developed and started to implement a complex, automated fleet management system in the late 1990s, and today it is used in more than 80 surface mines for all types of solid minerals. This system can help to improve the productivity of the mine fleet by up to 15 percent, and reduce operating costs by up to 10 percent while significantly minimising fuel misuse,” Rastopshin further adds.

In another giant stride of innovation, the load and fuel control system developed by Zyfra and its mining division in the early 2000s increase haulage efficiency for mine trucks. A case in point is BELAZ—a Belarusian automobile plant and one of the world’s largest manufacturers of large dump trucks—which has installed Zyfra’s load and fuel control system on all their mine dump trucks to bring about 6-8 percent haulage efficiency. This system also provides monitoring of other parameters as road quality, operator driving skills and suspension condition to ensure optimised workflow.

Adjacently, Zyfra uses high-precision GNSS navigation for digitalisation of mining operations, which can increase drill rig productivity by up to 20 percent. This not only streamlines all drill and blast operations but also facilitates management of ore grades that are delivered to the processing plant.

DELIVERING TANGIBLE PROGRESS WITH AI AND ROBOTIC SOLUTIONS

“We started the development of complex autonomous solutions for mines many years ago with designing remote control technology for a mining dump truck,” recalls Rastopshin. In 2012, the autonomous dump truck was successfully tested, and subsequently, an autonomous loading and hauling setup with a front loader and a dump truck passed the sign-off trials.

Zyfra has also designed the Smart Excavator System (SES), an AI-based software and hardware suite using computer vision to monitor the state of excavator bucket teeth and to measure the fragmentation (particle-size distribution) of ore and waste after drilling and blasting.

Rastopshin explains, “The smaller and more uniform fragmentation can improve excavator loading speed and dump truck utilisation, but too small fragmentation increases blasting costs.” Thus, Zyfra’s SES can assist in optimising the respective costs. At the same time, the identification of oversized mine rock fragments (boulders) and alert system for the digger operator can prevent mine workers from getting into the crusher. The SES suite can also track the state of the excavator’s teeth in realtime to alert the operator in case of a tooth loss and avoid crusher damage. This tooth condition monitoring is especially found helpful during planning for scheduled maintenance, which further reduces the number of tooth failures and excavator downtime while maximising tooth use.

Presently, a new module for excavator and shovel performance monitoring is under routine use testing. The system can provide detailed information about excavator working parameters, including the loading cycle time and each stage of the cycle – movement with a full or empty bucket, bucket loading and unloading, as well as an estimation of bucket load. Another function that would be soon integrated is the automated calculation of downtime to helptrack operational efficiency for each excavator and operator, as well as the effectiveness of excavator use in general.

A TRAILBLAZER IN THE MINING REALM

Today, numerous mining companies worldwide are riding on Zyfra’s expertise and innovative autonomous systems to breed operational success. And in many cases, Zyfra is being associated with “industry’s first” instances. A case in point would bethe Abakansky coal mine of the SUEK company. When the industrial-scale testing of unmanned technologies started at the coal mine, it was the first-ever industrial implementation of an Intelligent Mine project by Russian companies. Following the suit, today, are many other interested mining companies in Russia and other countries. Propelled by such associations and innovations, it is safe to say that Zyfra is well on its way to make a dramatic leap in commercialisation and sales of unique mining technologies—now and in the future.