Sunday, February 23
GMG SHORT COURSE
Implementing Autonomous Systems
This short course will speak to the Global Mining Guideline Group’s Guideline for the Implementation of Autonomous Systems in Mining, which aims to communicate and educate using current industry practices and common terms of reference and provides guidance on justifying, planning, developing, testing, implementing, and executing autonomous systems.
Hear from leaders who’ve implemented autonomous systems at two world class operations – Imperial Oil’s Kearl Operations and Roy Hill Mine – as they share real life experiences and lessons learned.
This short course is for all practitioners involved in or considering implementing autonomous systems.
To learn more, visit the short course page here
Registration for this short course must be completed through the SME website below. It appears in the registration system as Implementing Autonomous Systems, GMG.
Sunday, February 23 to Tuesday, February 25
SME EXPO
Come visit the GMG booth (#1630) in the tradeshow to take part in a mini workshop!
Monday, February 24
TECHNICAL PROGRAM | Room: North 128 B | Time: 2:00 PM
Panel on Foundations of AI in Mining
The mining industry is increasingly using AI-based innovation as a tool to optimize processes, enhance decision-making, derive value from data, and improve safety. That said, levels of maturity vary throughout the industry and there is still confusion about what AI is and how it can be applied to mining. As a result, mining operations still face many challenges with implementing AI, such as establishing a data infrastructure. Many mining stakeholders also have concerns about how AI will affect the workforce; they also worry about the risk of committing to a multi-year project and failing at it.
This panel session will cover the basics needed to cut through the hype, address concerns, and clarify what methods are useful.
Chair: Andrew Scott, Vice-Chair Working Groups at GMG and Principal Innovator at Symbiotic Innovations
Panellists:
- Rob Johnston, Project Manager, CITIC Pacific Mining
- Lia Walker, Manager – Innovation, Operational Improvement, Freeport-McMoRan
- Shahram Tafazoli, Founder & CEO, Motion Metrics
- Scott Kimbleton – Director, Global AI Solutions Deployment, Natural Resources Industries, IBM
Panel on Enabling the Mine of the Future
This panel will address a unified vision of where the industry needs to head based on common priorities such as safety, sustainability, productivity, and workforce of the future.
To achieve this vision there are a number of key developments that are required such as autonomous mining and electric mine realized through enablers including AI, asset management, interoperability, cybersecurity, communications, and KPIs – all critical ingredients of tomorrow’s advanced mines.
This panel will focus on practical approaches to achieving this vision.
Chair: Heather Ednie, Managing Director, GMG
Panellists:
- Mansoor J Hussain, Project Manager – Autonomous Haul Systems, Imperial
- Glenn Kerkhoff, Head Worldwide Business Development, Mining, AWS
- Marcelo Romero, Business Development Director – Operation, Hexagon Mining
- Zoltan Lukacs, Advisor – Asset Optimization and Operational Readiness
Tuesday, February 25
Mining & Exploration: Operations: Surface Automation | Room: North 225A | Time: 3:05PM
Guideline for Applying Functional Safety to Autonomous Systems – Application of a New Guideline
Andrew Scott, Principal Innovator, Symbiotic Innovations and Vice-Chair Working Groups, GMG
Functional Safety is a critical component of overall system safety in an autonomous system. The Global Mining Guidelines Group (GMG) recently published a guideline to help operators and autonomous mobile equipment providers ensure that functional safety standards are applied in a consistent fashion across the mining industry. This collaborative effort between operators and equipment providers helps to address the lack of clarity in existing standards applied to mobile equipment. Building on this, GMG are also developing a series of workshops, reports, and an online library to help people use the guideline. This presentation will introduce people to the contents of the guideline and help them with accessing the supporting tools.
Mining & Exploration: Innovation & Technology: Operational Benefits from In-shift Planning and Short Interval Control | Room: North 222C | Time: 4:05PM
Challenges and Best Practices for Transitioning from Pass Down Sheets to Digital Short Interval Control Systems in Underground Mines
Penmetsa and G. Fellows
Short Interval Control Systems yield significant benefits in terms of extending effective shift length, face utilization, and tons moved from face to stockpiles. The GMG group has also released guidelines around SIC and its implementation. While a SIC system can be implemented with off-the-shelf hardware, it will also need reliable underground networks to maximize the effectiveness of the system. This paper examines the challenges faced when introducing this new system to operators, shifters, supervisors and old-school dispatch operators, and recommends best practices to transition from a paper-based pass-down-sheet system with radio dispatch to a tablet-based Short Interval Control System that works in mines with little to no underground network support in conjunction with a Dispatch / Digital OpsCenter through to a well networked mine with automated dispatch. Successful transitions also involve process change, training and change management.
Wednesday February 26
Mining & Exploration: Geosciences: Geology: Numerical Modeling | Room: North 222A | Time: 3:05PM
The Open Mining Format – Version 2.0
Andrew Scott, Principal Innovator, Symbiotic Innovations and Vice-Chair Working Groups, GMG
The first version of the Open Mining Format (OMF) was released by GMG in 2017 as a proof of concept to demonstrate that it is possible to have a file interchange format that allows for easy transfer of data between different mining software packages. In follow-up to that GMG did a survey of over 250 mining professionals to determine the data exchange pain points in their daily work. This presentation will discuss those findings and show how the newly released OMF 2.0 addresses them and allows for seamless transfer of block models and other critical data between applications.
Mining & Exploration: Operations: Operational Enhancements: Pushing forward | Room: North 225A | Time: 3:45PM|
Developing Open Data Sets for AI in the Mining Sector
Rob Johnston, Project Manager, CITIC Pacific Mining
The Global Mining Guideline’s AI in Mining Working Group has begun to work collaboratively with its stakeholders to build the case for open data sets specific to the mining sector for AI development. GMG believes this will enhance the ability to build meaningful solutions for the industry by providing typical data relating to assets or operations for training and testing of models, and allowing all parties to have the ability to benchmark solutions and research more effectively.