Influence of Internet of Things on Mining Industry

Question: How internet of things influence the mining industry. Answer: The mining industry is the crossroad for todays global economy. The mining industry has the power of amending the global trends like decrease in commodity prices, shortage of skilled labours and slowdown in economy. Worldwide minerals are required for mankind survival and running our economies. (Joe, 2014). Extracting minerals and ores is very difficult for the mining companies. These companies are extracting the minerals and materials from remote far distant areas which are hazardous and risky during the extraction processes. In such extraction processes, safety for the employees and to the environment is always the top concern for the companies. Along with safety, cost control and profit is also very important for these companies. Thus the companies have shifted to automation, where the mining is dependent on the technology. This automation is done by Internet of things. Internet of Things (IOT) Internet of things technically is defined a scenario in which the machines or objects are given unique identifiers and are provided with the ability of data transfer over a network. In this set up or data transmission no human to human or human to computer interaction is required. Internet of Things works on the wire-less transmissions, electromechanical systems and Internet. The internet of things works on the principle of providing a biochip with an IP address on a living or non living thing, which can transfer the data over a set up network (Prowse, 2014). The best example for Internet of Things is the refrigerator who can identify the expiry date of the milk and will automatically place a purchase order through Internet. Internet of Things in Mining Industry The Internet of things has opened huge opportunities for mining and metal companies by providing them the facility of visibility and safety which was not possible before. The Internet of Things connect the human beings, machines, objects and various services in order to streamline the flow of information and taking real time decisions. The leading companies in mining industry are investing thousands of dollars in Internet of things as it will leads to increased asset uptime, increased safety, efficiency in maintenance while moving goods. With the use of leading edge technologies like Internet of things and Big data, the energy and mining companies have seen the reduction in risk and increase in the productivity. With the implementation of these technologies companies have seen utilisation in assets, optimization of processes and preventing environmental compliances (Kelley, 2014) Influence of Internet of Things on Mining Industry The most important use of internet of Things is in the heavy equipments which are used in various areas like construction, mining etc. With the help of IOT the mining equipments are now able to do those things which were not possible earlier. Safer Mining: With the help of Internet of things mining environment has become safer. The mining machines are very huge in size and wrong placement or wrong timing with these machines can turn out be fatal. Thus with the help of warning technologies like Radar, GPS system or proximity sensors the accidents are avoided and ensures safety at mining site (Bill, 2014). Automatic Operation: The best way to safe mine workers from any danger is to remove them from the mining site. In Western Australia there are few companies who are running self driven mining trucks. These trucks are driver free and operate through 200 sensors fitted on it which helps the truck in navigating the route and responding to the local nature (Bill, 2014). Benefits of autonomous trucks: As discussed earlier safety can be improved by eliminating the tiredness and error of driver and removing people from the mining site. Thus by using self-driven mining trucks can work whole day and night without any break or shift and will be more productive and error free in comparison to human driven trucks. These trucks are operated by the specialists who are seated at operations control centre in the major city who were earlier required to work at far-flung places (Bill, 2014). Autonomous drilling systems: These are automated drilling trains which extract the ores from the mines through automation processes. The mining operation process with the help of internet of things has been made advance and dynamic. With IOT the mining process has a memory which learns, anticipates trouble and responds to it (Bill, 2014). Easy and fast Maintenance: In mining industry maintenance of various mining machines and equipments is very important. With the remote sensing technique and through internet of things these machines can measure the level, pressures and temperature of fluids. It can also monitor the engine speed, brakes, vibrations etc. All these reading are transmitted remotely to operating centres where the engineers can be alerted for any upcoming potential threat and actions can be taken to save the trucks or mining sites (Douglas, 2014). Thus this automation has save huge time of the engineers and regular maintenance is taken care by decreasing the operating or maintenance cost and hazardous incidents taking place at mines. IOT fosters Layered Architecture: As discussed the Internet of Things is personified in chips, sensors, computers of the mining tools and equipments. These embedded computer systems are highly integrated with the self driven truck and control centres so as to drive the truck and control its movements during drilling. Also these systems are connected to high level centralized systems which can monitor the situation, guide the route and send new instructions to the equipments (Bill, 2014). Conclusion At last we can conclude saying that IOT has changed the operations of mining industry by making it much safer, efficient and automated. It has also converted the laborious jobs into high tech jobs. IOT has allowed workers to work remotely from a place they prefer and ensure safety by deploying minimum workforce at the mining site. Thus IOT is transforming the Mining industry. References Bill Mc Beath. (2014). How the Internet of Things is transforming Mining. Chain link Research. Douglas Bellin. (2014). Predictive Maintenance: The business impact of IOT for Mining companies. Joe Lee. (2014). Mining and metals + Internet of things: Industry opportunities and innovation. Kelley Prowse. (2014). Connected mining: Internet of things solutions in a complex market. Prowse Kelley. (2014). The internet of things in mining: A billion dollar toy store. Tech Vibes.