Digitization of Mining Industry

Abstract

With the beginning of Industry 4.0, many mining companies have started taking important steps towards the digitalization of mines. Digitization can help mine operators improve the productivity, optimizes output, minimize costs and enables real-time data collection and analysis, to take better decisions besides remote monitoring and control of mining operations, that can improve safety and efficiency. The mining companies must include digital thinking and processes throughout their organization in order to realize the benefits of digitalization and thrive for digital future by developing the right digital strategy, automate operations and digitization of assets, implement data-driven planning and decision making. The present paper comprehensively discusses the trends in digitization of mining industry, potential benefits and bottlenecks in implementation of the technology. It also elaborates some of the digital transformational technologies in brief. It is expected that the adoption of digital technologies, artificial intelligence and analytics in the mining industry will be accelerated in a big way. In the article, the author has comprehensively discussed some of the digital technologies like artificial intelligence and machine learning, digital twinning, internet of things, virtual reality etc. and their potential areas of applications in the mining industry