The Global Mining Guidelines Group (GMG), has published a report presenting a consensus of the industry’s vision and direction for interoperability gathered through interviews and workshops with 17 mining companies on six continents.
Interoperability is the key to success in automation, digitalization and integration initiatives and achieving the sustainability, safety and productivity benefits associated with them. As an industry that is becoming increasingly digital, poor interoperability presents growing challenges. Interoperability cannot be solved in a vacuum and coordination and alignment are needed to enable interoperability on a global scale.
The report summarizes feedback from the participating companies on defining interoperability and describing principles, priorities and a vision for commitment based on content from the draft GMG Interoperability Definitions and Roadmap guideline, which is the result of many workshops held over the past two years with over 120 participating companies.
“Achieving mining company alignment on priorities, vision and guiding principles for interoperability was a logical first step because they are the ones most immediately affected by the safety and productivity challenges associated with poor interoperability,” says GMG Chair Michelle Ash. A clear, unified voice from mining companies will provide the input mining equipment, technology and services (METS) companies and industry organizations require to adapt and develop new tools and processes effectively.
“This alignment will provide a foundation for building improved communication and collaboration between all stakeholders to drive the industry forward.”
This report 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.
This publication is a working document and will be updated based on continued industry communications and engagement. Through IFSAS, GMG is facilitating further engagement based on the priorities and principles drafted in the report. More mining companies will be solicited for their input. To this end, an IFSAS steering committee has also been established to drive international collaboration and accelerate value realization across the industry.
GMG is also engaging with other organizations working on interoperability initiatives, both inside and outside the mining industry to improve visibility and prevent duplication of effort. A roundtable of organizations working on different aspects of the issue will be held in Perth, Australia this week to drive this collaboration.
“We would like to establish an environment of openness,” says Ash. “We would love to hear your input so that we can move forward with the most complete industry view.”
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