In-Person Autonomous Mining Workshops

8:30 am – Noon | System Safety for Autonomous Mining

The draft of the GMG Guideline for System Safety for Autonomous Mining is nearing completion. This workshop is an opportunity for subject matter experts to review the content towards finalizing the draft and publishing the guideline before year’s end.

About the Guideline

System safety is about applying systems engineering and systems management to the process of hazard, safety and risk analysis to identify, assess and control associated hazards while designing or modifying systems, products, or services. The purpose of this guideline is to provide guidance on applying system safety practices to autonomous systems in mining, building off GMG’s System Safety for Autonomous Mining White Paper published in 2021. Since system safety is not well understood across the mining industry, this guideline will act as part educational piece on system safety and part reference for validating internal processes with industry best practices. The scope of this guideline covers:

• Best practices for applying system safety principles
• Considerations for mixed and multi-vendor fleets, such as identification of protocols and their uses and discussion on responsibilities
• Considerations for software safety management (e.g., training, software release management, access management, and recovery procedures)
• Considerations for cyber risk management
• Considerations for upgrade management

1:00pm-4:30 pm | Implementation of Autonomous Systems in Mining

New content has been drafted for the Operational Readiness and Deployment sections of the updated version of the GMG Guideline for the Implementation of Autonomous Systems in Mining. Subject matter experts are needed to review this content and identify anything that should be added. Most of the new content in this draft guideline is in the Operational Readiness and Deployment sections. The aim is to publish before year’s end.

About the Operational Readiness Section

Autonomous systems are complex, requiring those implementing them to integrate many layers of planning before deployment. This section of the guideline covers fundamental principles and considerations for operational readiness, including:

• A section on technology that covers infrastructure requirements, security considerations, and system architecture considerations
• A section on the key workforce factors to consider when implementing autonomous systems
• A section on processes, covering mine planning and design, process redesigns, engineering design management, and management of change
• A section on benchmarking and analysis that provides guidance around useful metrics to measure

About the Deployment Section

This section provides general information on the deployment and commissioning of autonomous systems, including aspects to consider, key questions to ask, and good practices. This section covers:

• Steps to consider before deployment
• Guidance for the installation and commissioning process
• Considerations during the transition to operations, including the handover to operations and ongoing training and support
• Considerations around continuous improvement, including monitoring and assessments, benchmarking, and optimizing operations