Workflow Management
The future of underground mining could mean no one sets foot underground at all - a zero-entry mine powered by autonomy, interoperability, and constantly updated digital twins.
As mining companies increasingly operate from hundreds, sometimes thousands, of kilometres away from the pit or plant, one challenge has remained constant – how to give remote teams the same operational context, detail, and situational awareness they’d have if they were standing on site.
Every hour of downtime costs a mine tens of thousands of dollars, and Professor Amir Gandomi told the NSW Resources Regulator’s Mechanical Engineering Safety Seminar how artificial intelligence is now cutting those losses by predicting failures and optimising operations in seconds.
What do Formula 1 racing and tailings storage have in common? More than you’d think - especially when AI joins the engineering crew.
For years, exploration teams have wrestled with data chaos in the field.
When Katrina Garven, Principal Database Consultant at Alias Database Services, reflects on how mining and exploration companies use geological data, she sees an industry undergoing a quiet revolution.
The future of mineral exploration may hinge less on drill rigs and more on the quality of the data flowing from them.
Henry Dillon, Global Customer Success Manager - Geoscience at Maptek, used his time on stage at APCOM2025 in Perth to challenge one of the industry’s most entrenched habits - treating resource models as static snapshots.
Tailings monitoring is a lot like health care - when it’s reactive, it can cost you dearly, but when it’s proactive, structured and consistent, it becomes a powerful tool for preventing failure, demonstrating stewardship, and building long-term confidence in your facility.
In a sector where “take-or-pay” contracts have long dictated how miners move their commodities, one new entrant is promising a more flexible model that puts the needs of producers first.
