By Hennie Colyn, direct sales executive: process automation at Schneider Electric.
Process automation plays a vital role in making the mining industry more sustainable. It enhances operational efficiency, while reducing environmental impact. By leveraging advanced automation systems, mining companies can optimise resource utilisation, minimise energy consumption, and lower greenhouse gas emissions.
Process automation contributes to sustainability by enabling precise and data-driven decision making. It delivers real-time monitoring and control of mining operations from a central location that allows for immediate response and adjustments to changing conditions. This ensures that processes are running at their most efficient levels, minimising waste and unnecessary resource usage.
Importantly, process automation facilitates predictive maintenance, which can assist in identifying and addressing mining equipment issues before they escalate into costly breakdowns. This proactive approach not only minimises downtime but also extends the lifespan of mining equipment, reducing the need for frequent replacements and associated resource consumption.
Sustainable mining with process automation
An important differentiator of process automation is its ability to be used in selective mining, targeting high-grade ore deposits with precision. This reduces the amount of overburden that needs to be removed, minimising the environmental disturbance, and preserving surrounding ecosystems.
According to research, as much as five tons of overburden can be produced for every ton of productive material extracted, depending on the mining method used. Minimising overburden is therefore a major advantage for sustainability.
Automation can also help streamline mining operations, eliminating inefficiencies that can negatively impact the business and the environment. For instance, analytics solutions can help identify areas where an organisation is producing excess waste, enabling mining organisations to take actions to mitigate it.
Process automation offers the following important benefits to mining operations:
• Safety: Direct exposure to mining processes and equipment operations poses a significant risk to miners. By automating a process, companies can take the necessary steps to alleviate potential injury to their operators. Furthermore, certain parts of the mining process can be automated, exposing fewer workers to hazardous areas.
• Transparency of consumption: Energy visibility is the starting point for decarbonisation. Obtaining insights from across the value chain is vital for measuring what you use and controlling what you measure.
• Precise and data-driven decision making: This removes any bias or subjectivity from the process. By relying on data and analysis, mining organisations can make decisions based solely on facts rather than personal preferences, previous experience or opinions.
• Predictive maintenance: This seeks to prevent equipment failure and downtime by connecting IoT-enabled enterprise assets, applying advanced analytics to the real-time data it delivers, and using the resultant insights to inform educated, cost-effective and efficient maintenance protocols.
Ultimately, process automation offers precise, data-driven analytics that can assist mining organisations in reducing resource consumption, improving safety, while meeting sustainability requirements and targets.
All eyes on the modern DCS platform Schneider Electric South Africa
PLCs, DCSs & Controllers
Modernised DCS platforms are no longer confined to hardware-dependent architectures. These systems have evolved to combine the strengths of both PLCs and DCS while adding capabilities that make them more open, resilient and collaborative.
Read more...Why choose between Capex and Opex if you can Totex? Schneider Electric South Africa
IT in Manufacturing
In a sector marked by cyclical demand, high capital intensity, and increasing regulatory and sustainability pressures, mining, minerals and metals (MMM) companies are re-evaluating how they approach procurement and investment.
Read more...AI and the smart factory Schneider Electric South Africa
IT in Manufacturing
Imagine walking into a factory where machines can think ahead, predict problems before they happen and automatically make adjustments to realise peak performance. This isn’t science fiction, it’s happening right now as AI continues to transform how we run industrial operations.
Read more...Why your supply chain should be a competitive advantage Schneider Electric South Africa
IT in Manufacturing
The last five years have placed unprecedented strain on global supply chains. Leading companies are turning the challenge into an opportunity to transform their supply chains into a competitive advantage.
Read more...Real-time modelling is the key to a resilient, bi-directional energy grid Schneider Electric South Africa
Electrical Power & Protection
Utilities and municipalities are facing a challenge as the country’s legacy power grid, engineered for one-way energy delivery from centralised suppliers to end-users, must rapidly evolve to meet a new paradigm.
Read more...Shielding data centre growth from the looming power crunch Schneider Electric South Africa
Electrical Power & Protection
Today’s digital economy is placing unprecedented strain on the power grid. The good news is that these challenges are not insurmountable. By adopting proactive strategies such as alternative power sources, infrastructure planning and software, operators can secure capacity, build resilient facilities and scale sustainably.
Read more...Circuit breaker innovations Schneider Electric South Africa
Electrical Power & Protection
Recent advancements in circuit breaker technology have seen a major step forward in setting new standards for efficiency and sustainability in data centres, industrial and commercial infrastructure.
Read more...Why AI will never truly understand machines Wearcheck
IT in Manufacturing
Cutting-edge technology and solutions powered by AI are embraced by specialist condition monitoring company, WearCheck, where the extreme accuracy of data used to assess and diagnose machine health is paramount.
Read more...Buildings and microgrids for a greener future Schneider Electric South Africa
IT in Manufacturing
Buildings are no longer passive consumers of power. Structures of almost every size are evolving into dynamic energy ecosystems capable of generating, storing and distributing their own electricity. Forming part of this exciting transformation are microgrids.
Read more...Africa’s brightest young battery innovators Schneider Electric South Africa
News
Schneider Electric and Enactus, the international NGO dedicated to inspiring students through entrepreneurial action, have announced the winners of the 2025 Energy Transition Battery Innovation Challenge, funded by the Schneider Electric Foundation. It empowers young innovators to design battery solutions addressing the region’s most pressing energy challenges.
While every effort has been made to ensure the accuracy of the information contained herein, the publisher and its agents cannot be held responsible for any errors contained, or any loss incurred as a result. Articles published do not necessarily reflect the views of the publishers. The editor reserves the right to alter or cut copy. Articles submitted are deemed to have been cleared for publication. Advertisements and company contact details are published as provided by the advertiser. Technews Publishing (Pty) Ltd cannot be held responsible for the accuracy or veracity of supplied material.
printer friendly version