DATA MANAGEMENT: Why open standards are essential to the mining industry’s future.

From Wenco International Mining Systems comes this thoughtful essay on data management. The complete report is a “must read” for modern miners, so follow the link at the bottom of this item. VANCOUVER – Lately, every mining executive we connect with focuses on leveraging data and interoperability to drive productivity and profitability within their operations. They see how the industry is changing from an “ore-push” to a “customer order-pull” model in which market demands influence production. This change is behind the drive to connect together the systems used throughout entire operations – end to end – to better plan and execute the delivery of product. The big issue with this approach is that a lot of mines operate in silos, putting together data in spreadsheets. To change to a demand-driven, customer-centric model, mines need to integrate their operations and their systems – from planning to pit to plant to port (or “pit to port”, for short). With the advent of automated systems across the pit-to-port spectrum, mining companies are even more motivated to get the data and systems interoperability model correct. Once they do, they can take advantage of that integration when autonomous systems come online. Read more about the way open standards influence adoption of autonomous systems at Wencomine.com.