28 Aug Industry taskforce launched at Interoperability Alignment Roundtable

The Global Mining Guidelines Group (GMG) hosted its inaugural Interoperability Alignment Roundtable two weeks ago in Perth, Australia to accelerate progress and enhance collaboration between organizations working on interoperability.

Interoperability is a priority for the mining industry and there are many ongoing projects, guidelines and standards being developed for it. This event brought organizations working on different aspects of the issue – both inside and outside the mining industry­ – together to increase the visibility of ongoing interoperability initiatives and to prevent duplication of efforts.

Representatives from AMIRA, CSIRO, Enterprise Transformation Partners, GMG, IIC, ISO, Interop, IREDES, METS Ignited, and MI4 presented on their initiatives and discussed ways to move forward collaboratively.

The roundtable confirmed the need for coordination and knowledge sharing among organizations, and participants recognized that interoperability is a vast issue. While their projects focus on different aspects of interoperability, there are overlaps and many are interconnected in some way.

“We’re further ahead than we might think. Once the pieces are put together, you can see that there is a lot going on in an effort to solve interoperability challenges,” says GMG Managing Director Heather Ednie, commenting on the breadth of what was presented. Exposure will be just as important as coordination in ensuring these initiatives achieve their full potential.

To foster this collaborative environment, these organizations and others working on the topic will form an interoperability organizations taskforce. This group will work toward fleshing out a detailed roadmap and develop a way of illustrating how all the pieces fit together.

Among the participants, Ednie says, “There was a very strong willingness and appetite to work together,” also noting that many of these organizations and initiatives are backed by the same companies, so coordination is in their best interest as well.

This roundtable is part of GMG’s Interoperability and Functional Safety Acceleration Strategy (IFSAS), launched in early 2019 with support from BHP and Rio Tinto. This strategy aims to facilitate collaboration and accelerate progress on interoperability and functional safety. The interoperability component of this strategy also involves coordinating industry alignment on a direction and vision for interoperability through communication and engagement. These efforts will be directed by a steering committee comprising key stakeholders.

About GMG

GMG is a network of representatives from mining companies, OEMs, OTMs, research organizations and academics, consultants, regulators and industry associations around the world who collaborate to tackle challenges facing our industry.

We aim to accelerate the improvement of mining performance, safety and sustainability by developing guidelines and reports addressing common industry challenges, facilitating collaboration and expanding the industry’s knowledge base, and hosting and supporting events that bring mining stakeholders together along with external industries to address challenges, successes and innovation.