INVESTMENT

Accenture highlights five trends set to impact mining in 2019

In navigating the challenges of 2019, five key trends will be critical for mining companies. Broader social and technology changes are arguably set to impact like never before.

Ann Burns and George Long*
Mine sites are more vulnerable than ever before to cybersecurity breaches and attacks from criminals, competitors and other nation states

Mine sites are more vulnerable than ever before to cybersecurity breaches and attacks from criminals, competitors and other nation states

Focus on productivity

Miners have been on their digital journey for several years now and have created significant value and new efficiencies. They have proven that new technologies can be deployed at the right price point, however there is an argument to say that value delivered at scale is rare.

As such, the focus of a miners' digital strategy is shifting from the IT departments to the assets and operations, as this is where value of a mining company is derived.

Productivity can be defined as value created or loss reduced. Measuring value created is difficult as the concept is theoretical, whereas the focus on loss is much more tangible.

Mining companies that truly understand where losses are occurring, in real time, have the ability to solve for those losses and increase productivity across the value chain as a whole.

Importance of integration

Integration of data has been common in the industry for a while with numerous data lakes and databases created. However, the integration of data and systems is only one piece. The integration of processes is where the bigger prize lies.

To focus on integration, miners should have visibility of the end-to-end production chain. This visibility allows mining companies to understand where opportunities exist to integrate and where losses are occurring.

With a foundation built on visibility and integration, miners have a much stronger platform to automate and optimise in near real time. This ‘layer cake' approach can be implemented in a number of ways and will be driven by each company's goals at the time.

Navigating Industry 4.0

The fourth industrial revolution has bought us new services, technologies and techniques that are here to help the mining industry achieve its goals. However, navigating this path is not straight forward. It requires the right blend of strategy, vision, operating model, innovation, technology, capability and most importantly, people and culture.

As mining companies go on their journey to delivering value at scale, they need support from core functions to help define the best path to take.

In a recent study Accenture identified key decision points that companies have taken on their own journey. By building this into a framework that supports digital initiatives, miners can accelerate their journey to value at scale.

Fostering a future ready workforce

The workforce coming into the industry today are all digital natives. In their personal lives they want fast resolution to menial tasks and want to spend more time focusing on experiences. This doesn't translate into the work space in mining presently.

The opportunity exists to leverage technology to minimise menial tasks eventually eliminating the dirty, dangerous, dull and dear ones. Using the present workforce to solve problems, identify solutions through using their experience and natural innovative spirit lays the ground work to attract the workforce of the future into the industry.

This year will see a much more fluid approach between roles and projects for its workers. Instead of being engaged in one role, miners will source internal employees from across the organisation into ad-hoc projects, or what Accenture calls ‘taskforces'.

Alongside changing management of work, there is a pressing need to upskill and retrain the existing workforce to meet new digital demands. According to Accenture's Reworking the Revolution research, two-thirds of Australian workers (66%) believe the roles requiring collaboration with Artificial Intelligence (AI) will rise over the next three years.

Accenture believes human-machine collaboration is a critical factor of reskilling the future workforce. To ensure growth and productivity, mining leaders must pivot their workforce and equip their people to work with these intelligent technologies.

Cyber resilience and the sleeping threats in the mine

Digital technologies are bringing undeniable value and productivity to the mining industry. However, with an increasing number of connected devices and systems, connected mine sites are more vulnerable than ever before to cybersecurity breaches and attacks from criminals, competitors and other nation states.

Mining companies this year should adopt a proactive, rather than reactive, approach to cybersecurity. Future security systems should be able to automatically manage complex risk decisions and reduce the potential for human error.

*Ann Burns is Accenture resources lead for Australia and New Zealand, and George Long is digital mining lead

 

A growing series of reports, each focused on a key discussion point for the farming sector, brought to you by the Kondinin team.

A growing series of reports, each focused on a key discussion point for the farming sector, brought to you by the Kondinin team.

editions

Mining Journal Intelligence Investor Sentiment Report 2024

Survey revealing the plans, priorities, and preferences of 120+ mining investors and their expectations for the sector in 2024.

editions

Mining Journal Intelligence Mining Equities Report 2023

Access an exclusive, inside look on the quarterly mining IPOs and secondary raisings data and mining equities performance tables with an annual Stock Exchange Comparisons supplement.

editions

Mining Journal Intelligence World Risk Report 2023 (feat. MineHutte ratings)

A detailed analysis of mining investment risks across 121 jurisdictions globally, built on 11 ‘hard risk’ metrics and an industrywide survey.

editions

Mining Journal Intelligence Global Leadership Report 2023: Social licence

Gain insights into social licence trends and best practices from interviews with 20+ top mining company executives and an industrywide survey.