Every year, mining companies usually announce their production forecasts to the market. However, due to the high cost of their capital infrastructure, any pause in operations, even if planned, incurs significant expenses.
Commodity prices can be very volatile, so when the price suddenly decreases, mining companies will typically try to increase production to maintain their top line revenue. Access to timely operational & production information is essential to be able to succeed in these competitive markets.
At the same time, in their resource global market, every mining company wants to be the lowest cost provider. If they can achieve this, then they will always be competitive in their market.
To consistently achieve this, decision makers need accurate and timely information that views each operation in context across the value chain. An integrated view of operations delivers better visibility across the mining value chain, allowing mining companies to respond quickly to market changes and opportunities.
The information revolution through Mining Operations Management (MOM)
Even though consistent visibility and operational excellence is critical, some mines are still heavily reliant on field operators, manual processes, and voice radio communications to determine if an asset is performing correctly. Conventional legacy systems were typically designed to be siloed which makes it difficult to create the right context across mining operation. Thus, to present the information to the end-users in this situation, manual processes and custom data solutions both to be used, this results in multiple custom applications which then creates multiple versions of the truth, making it very difficult for optimum decision making.
So even though the miners generate vast quantities of data about their operations every day, they still may struggle to convert it to useful, timely and accurate information for multiple stakeholders across overall mining value chain.
This is where the value of a Mining Operations Management (MOM) platform comes into play, enhancing the utilization of data generated by current automation and control systems in mining operations.
