Given the growing demand for customers to go underground for mineral deposits, Komatsu is looking to expand its expertise to support future industry needs with acquisition of Australian firm Mine Site Technologies (MST), which has developed operational optimization platforms for underground mining that leverage communication devices and position tracking systems.
Empowering its customers growing use of digitalization and automation to improve safety and productivity, Komatsu says it plans to work with MST to help customers build digital ecosystems with real-time insights and alerts, voice and communication technologies, software solutions, robust network infrastructure and wireless and geospatial technologies.
Together, the companies will increase availability of high-speed, low-latency digital communication, which is necessary to: provide mission-critical communication, integrate IoT sensors, increase the volume of information communicated and enable real-time tracking, monitoring and automation of mine operations.
For 30 years, MST has consistently delivered innovative solutions to address the needs of customers today and for the future. The company specializes in developing and delivering ruggedized, fit for purpose solutions and services partnering with mining and tunneling customers on their digital strategy to unearth safety and productivity improvements.
MST's solutions enable communication between operators and mining equipment, as well as position tracking for operators and equipment, leveraging optical fiber broadband communication systems, which create a real-time geospatial digital twin of underground operations: an important and fundamental building block for digitalization. With a global customer base, it offers a platform to visualize and monitor the underground mining environment and enable control from a remote operations center, thus optimizing mine operations to increase safety and productivity whilst safeguarding the environment. The solutions contribute to the digitization and automation of underground mining operations.
By adding MST's experience and expertise in the introduction of communication devices and optimization platforms, Komatsu aims to enhance the speed at which it offers advanced technology solutions, including the automation and teleoperation of mining equipment underground.
Komatsu plans to close the acquisition on July 1, on the condition that all necessary procedures for closing are completed.
To learn more, visit www.komatsu.com.
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