http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-10-18/rio-tinto-opens-worlds-first-automated-mine/6863814
The first two mines in the world to start moving all of their iron ore using fully remote-controlled trucks have just gone online in Western Australia's Pilbara.
Mining giant Rio Tinto is running pits at its Yandicoogina and Nammuldi mine sites, with workers controlling the driverless trucks largely from an operations centre in Perth, 1,200 kilometres away.
Josh Bennett manages the mining operations at Yandicoogina mine north west of Newman and is closely involved with running 22 driverless trucks on the site.
"What we have done is map out our entire mine and put that into a system and the system then works out how to manoeuvre the trucks through the mine."
The company is now operating 69 driverless trucks across its mines at Yandicoogina, Nammuldi and Hope Downs 4.
The trucks can run 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, without a driver who needs bathroom or lunch breaks, which has industry insiders estimating each truck can save around 500 work hours a year.
Mr Bennett said the technology takes away dangerous jobs while also slashing operating costs.
"We have taken away a very high risk role, where employees are exposed to fatigue," he said.
"It is quite challenging to get repeatability out of a human, one of the advantages we have had with autonomous haulage particularly in the truck fleet we notice we are getting consistency in terms of the way the machines are operating.
"One of the biggest costs we have got it maintaining mobile assets, so we spend a lot of time on our operator training, education.
"So, there is obvious capital savings, in terms of setting up camps, flying people to site, there is less people so there is less operating costs, but there are some costs that come into running the system and maintenance of the system as well.".......
...........Mr Bennett said that involves the creation of new, highly skilled positions.
"We have a whole dedicated team based in Perth that is looking at how to optimise the system, looking at maintenance, productivity...those are jobs that did not exist five years ago," he said.
"We have got roles which are being created such as a central controller and a pit controller which are essential to running the autonomous system."....
..........Senior lecturer with Curtin University's School of the Mines, Dr Carla Boehl, said the changing nature of the industry is creating new opportunities for her students.
"In terms of trades, there will be fewer jobs, but in terms of maintainers we still need them, we can't live without them," she said.
"All this technology, bit data and analytics will actually increase the number of jobs in more analytical work, it is a change from trade jobs to more analytical ones."
Dr Boehl said students are being proactive in learning about the new technology.
"The students themselves are interested, they want to do their thesis in this field and learn more about automation," she said. "At a post graduate level we are starting to do more work regarding maintenance, automation, we do a lot of big data understanding, what is big data, what algorithms can be used to support systems."
But the high level of secrecy still shrouding the evolving industry is making is difficult for her students to learn about it during university. "It is still a bit of a secret in terms of what is happening in automation, because we don't have the information from the big players," she said.
"I have students wanting to do PhDs in this topic, but we need the data to do that, we are not getting that data from companies like Rio Tinto, BHP or FMG. "We will continue talking with these people and negotiating to get that."
Despite the challenges, robotic experts believe it provides big opportunities.
Dr Raymond Sheh from Curtin University's Computing Department has been studying robots for more than a decade and said the innovation must be exploited.
"There are new jobs coming online that support these new technologies," he said. "You still need people in there to monitor where they go, to tell them where they should be going and should be doing, even though a lot of that scheduling is being done automatically."
Rio plans to fully automate its trains by the middle of next year once the Office of Rail Safety includes the technology in its safety guidelines.
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I have edited parts of the story. Full Article:http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-10-18/rio-tinto-opens-worlds-first-automated-mine/6863814
The story has a few angles to consider.
Loss of personnel on the actual mining site, including drivers, less vehicle maintenance, canteen workers, Cabin air conditioning maintenance and general fitout in trucks.
OHS, Worker's Compensation claims,
Training and educating button pushers.
Design of the actual buttons.
Not knowing too much about the running of a mine, why have trucks at all? Just design and build some sort of track that can be relatively easily installed alongside the "digging machinery" that loops to the drop point>>>empties>>>returns to filling point.
DEB
