The Elements of Innovation Discovered
The Elements of Innovation Discovered
Oil, tech giants create first B2B digital mining marketplace Metal Tech News Weekly Edition – June 26, 2020
Disruptions related to COVID-19 has accelerated a search for digital solutions that will exist in making mining companies more agile and resilient moving forward.
Mining companies will be able to benefit from digital solutions employed by the petroleum sector such as those used to manage remote operations safely and efficiently.
Shell and IBM have joined forces to create Oren, a global business-to-business digital mining services marketplace platform aimed at helping companies find solutions related to mine safety, sustainability, planning, and operational efficiency.
The incorporation of artificial intelligence, blockchain, autonomous mining equipment, ore sorting, predictive maintenance, drones, and remote health and safety monitoring technologies have been increasingly adopted by the mining sector in recent years.
Disruptions surrounding the COVID-19 pandemic has accelerated this search for smart mining solutions that will make these companies more agile and resilient moving forward.
A recent survey by Shell, a major supplier of lubricants to the mining industry, found that 80% of 350 mining businesses are wrestling with similar challenges in their operations –aggregating data to make actionable insights; lack of intelligent workflows due to siloed organizational working; improving sustainability; and keeping employees safe while deploying autonomous technology.
"Mining customers can benefit from many of the digital solutions used in the energy industry, for example, those that help manage operations safely and efficiently in remote locations," said Carol Chen VP, Global Marketing Lubricants Shell.
Mining companies, however, may not always have the time and budgets to invest in developing their own new tools to meet these challenges. They are looking to deploy ready-made, proven solutions to improve operations by aggregating data from different sources to create a single view of their operations in order to abstract insights and really drive action and make more informed, data driven decisions.
By hosting new technology and digital solutions in one place, Oren aims to assist in accelerating the digitization of the mining industry, speed up the transformation of mining workflows, and build in more operational resiliency in a rapidly changing world.
"The next push in mining requires a new approach towards industry-wide technology platforms which requires new levels of openness, innovation, and collaboration. Oren accelerates the adoption of digital services in the mining industry by facilitating technology transfer, innovation, and integration from solution providers across the ecosystem," said Matt Candy, global managing partner, IBM iX. "For miners, this experience can help efficiently locate solutions at all levels of the organization. This can make their existing workflows more intelligent to enable their digital journeys and help them reach their long terms goals."
The Oren marketplace platform allows solution developers – both established enterprise companies as well as start-ups – to get their market innovations to mining clients quickly.
"We envision Oren being the one-stop digital destination for the mining sector to access the best digital solutions and technologies, not just from Shell and IBM, but also from leading and emerging companies. Being able to find and access a wide range of solutions digitally is even more important given the movement constraints faced as countries respond to COVID-19," said Chen.
Oren also aims to enable mining operations to develop a roadmap designed to deliver the smart mine of the future by creating connected solutions that integrate and leverage data, artificial intelligence, internet of things, automation, and analytics. In addition to providing access to digital mining services, this will offer solutions and services that can enable miners to imagine and build up intelligent workflows that integrate all services across the mining ecosystem.
The Oren team will bring expert support to mining companies to help build their specific digital journey roadmap while the B2B marketplace provides solutions to get things done:
• Tailored search that allows users to identify the most appropriate solutions by customizing their search parameters in relation to their responsibilities, the business challenge they are tackling or the nature of the technical solution they are seeking.
• Access to field-proven mining solutions such as; MachineMax, a cloud-based digital service for off-highway vehicles and industrials fleet optimization; Shell Remote Sense, a smart lubricant condition monitoring service delivering insights for industrial companies to optimize equipment health, lower maintenance costs and increase operational efficiency; and IBM's maintenance, repair and operations inventory optimization services which helps manage spare parts inventory optimally for both critical and non-critical spares.
• Dedicated environmental management and compliance software that can provide detailed analysis and reporting on pollutant inventories, greenhouse gas emission, energy consumption, environmental impact assessment, mine rehabilitation, and mine life cycle assessment. It is anticipated that one third of the solutions available on the marketplace will be related to sustainability with solutions on Oren from both large enterprise and start-ups.
• Early adopter access for pioneering technologies that help transform mining operations. Oren will facilitate mining companies to try new solutions in their daily work and integrate them into their current systems. For example, on an operational level the trend in the mining industry is that more and more work is undertaken from control rooms. On Oren, to bring the full experience of a mine site visit to any home office, BGC Engineering will feature its Ada platform, which allows holographic visualization of a mine site through a realistic 3D interactive and immersive experience. With this solution subject matter experts and non-technical stakeholders can visit a digital version of their project site any time; past, present, or future.
• A searchable repository of best practice mining use cases to show the solutions in action in other mine sites. As the platform increases in use, mining companies will be able to extract insights related to technology trends applied in the industry and understand what areas the sector is investing in. This will help them determine how their own digital transformation journey is progressing. Mining service providers or sellers can also gain insights that are useful for product improvement and that can drive innovation based on what resonates with the customer base and other users of the platform.
The marketplace is available now at: http://www.orenmarketplace.com
With more than 16 years of covering mining, Shane is renowned for his insights and and in-depth analysis of mining, mineral exploration and technology metals.
Reader Comments(0)