Bureaucrats, academics, miners grapple with automation issue

“Is there anyone here who doubts there will a completely automated mine, somewhere in the world, in the near future?” panel member Ronald Woodbridge asked the 170 attendees of the second Canadian Symposium on Mining Automation held here last week.

No one replied.

“Is there anyone here who doubts there will come a time when all mines in the world are automated?” Woodbridge, who is also president of the Canadian Advanced Technology Association, a non-mining organization, countered.

Pandemonium spread through the conference room of the Sheraton Caswell.

This, The Northern Miner has learned after attending some 13 presentations on this rather esoteric topic, is just one of the issues being grappled with by Canada’s mines — how to deal with a myriad of technological changes being implemented by mining companies to counter the negative effects on metal markets brought about by increased international competition. Labor vs capital

Labor costs are so high in Canada relative to competing mines in the Third World that mining companies have found it more economic to invest in more capital equipment, rather than more labor, to improve mine productivity.

A study on mining productivity in the province, conducted by Queen’s University and funded by the Ontario government, due to be published in a few weeks, may indicate an impending change in this state of affairs, according to Gerry Anders of the Ontario Ministry of Northern Development and Mines. It concludes that labor productivity has leveled off, suggesting there may soon come a time when labor costs do not increase as fast as the cost of capital. Automation would then be less attractive.

In the meantime mining companies will continue to use new technology.

The Swedes, who manufacture mining equipment for world markets, agree that mining companies have to reduce manpower in their mines, one way or another, according to Sverker Hartwig of Stockholm. A research program, called Mining 2000 — has recently been instituted in that small, Scandinavian country. And the Swedes are backing it up with $100 million in financing.

No one at this symposium doubts that the economic problems facing the Canadian mining industry today are common to all mines (non-gold mines anyway). But there can be no industry-wide standard technological solutions — standardized mining machines for driving drifts of a standard size, ramps at standard inclinations and radius of curvature, for example — because each mine is a unique animal.

“It took hdrk (a cooperative research organization comprising Inco Ltd., Falconbridge Ltd. and Noranda Inc.) 11 months just to come up with a set of priorities that all three member companies could agree with,” M. E. Jowsey of hdrk says. “That’s only three companies (out of hundreds in Canada) so how can you get a consensus from the whole industry?”

None-the-less, automation — just one of the ways to increase productivity — is advancing in our mines. Underground coal and potash mines are the traditional examples. In fact, research and development — the way automation is reduced from academic theory to actual practice in the mine — is becoming as important to most mining companies as shareholder meetings, annual reports, etc., are, one participant suggested.

With a plethora of new computer technology available to the industry, the problem does not seem to be how to automate, but how to integrate all the various automation systems. Research funding

The Mining Industry Technology Council of Canada (mitec) is one organization recently formed in Canada to co-ordinate research in the industry. One of its objectives is to ensure research work is relevant to the industry’s needs and to avoid duplication of effort. But the organization does not fund research, it merely facilitates it.

“It’s nice to see there is an industry-wide commitment to new technology,” one conference participant says, “but what’s in it for mining students in the country’s eight mining schools?”

On-going financing of research projects would do it, Prof Pierre Belanger of McGill University replied. His university is at the stage now of getting the funds and the people together to staff the Mining Centre for Robotics in Montreal. About $1.5 million has come from outside McGill to run the centre.

“I think it is time for the National Research Council to leave basic research to the universities,” Belanger says.

Research funding is a key issue for universities. Charles Pelley, spokesman for Queen’s University in Kingston, Ont., says,”If you want us to train these people, gentlemen, you’re going to have to fund them. We can produce them as fast as you’re willing to fund them. As it stands now, it costs us $500 per month for a Masters student and $1,000 a month for a Ph.D. student. But to fund them, unfortunately, we have to publish, and as long as we have to depend on government funds we don’t even have the time the talk to you.”

Another symposium on mining automation has been set for next year in Val d’Or, Que.