Making mining sustainable
MINING is a major contributor to both the Australian and global economies but the sector is facing strong headwinds.
It is increasingly difficult to find and access minerals, mine safety needs to improve and the environmental footprint of operations must be reduced.
Collectively, the industry also needs to do more to earn and maintain its social licence to operate.
The University of Melbourne has worked with the mining industry for more than 100 years and in 2018 created the Melbourne Mining Integrator (MMI).
MMI provides a clearer portal for industry contact and is draws upon the considerable resources across the University.
At the same time, MMI creates large multi-disciplinary teams to tackle grand challenges.
In addition to traditional mining disciplines, it has access to one of Australia’s deepest knowledge and understanding of automation and artificial intelligence pools.
In order to progress and thrive, mining must become more precise, generate less waste and reduce its operating footprint.
The advent of Industry 4.0 (autonomous, smart and data-driven systems) presents significant opportunities across the mining industry.
So-called ‘precision mining’ offers the potential to improve safety, reduce waste, increase productivity and speed up the rehabilitation of mine sites.
This will also result in new opportunities for Australia’s mining equipment, technology and services
(METS) sector.
The mining industry is already awash with data, but data by itself is useless if it is not used for better decision making.
Industries need to ensure they are capturing the right data, connecting systems and optimising decisions across the whole system, not just sub-components.
Through MMI, the University of Melbourne is leading a national bid for the Mining Industry 4.0 Cooperative Research Centre (MI4 CRC). If successful, MI4 CRC would bring together METS and mining companies from across the value supply chain.
The focus is on improving the interoperability of sub-systems throughout the sector.
There are also significant opportunities for the METS sector in building and delivering these solutions.
With sustainability at the forefront, MMI is a foundation partner in the Future Battery Industries CRC (FBI CRC); funding for which CRC was announced early 2019 with an aim to develop a nascent battery sector in Australia.
There are numerous strong opportunities for MMI to contribute meaningfully to the mining and METS sectors and we are activity seeking partners and collaborators.
For further details, please contact: Professor Adrian Pearce Director, Melbourne Mining Integrator Bid Leader, MI4 CRC
The University of Melbourne E: adrianrp@unimelb.edu.au
The University of Melbourne will exhibit at IMARC booth MR4.