International News: Sandvik and Vedanta partner to drive full digitalization at Hindustan Zinc’s SK

An underground drill rig. — Photo courtesy Sandvik

Sandvik will implement a major digital transformation at Hindustan Zinc’s Sindesar Khurd (SK) mine, ensuring all required infrastructure and platforms are established to achieve world-class mining safety, efficiency and productivity.

Sandvik is delivering one of the most comprehensive digital offerings globally to the SK mine through the industry-leading, OEM-independent OptiMine® digital platform. The world-class system includes a comprehensive set of features for short interval control of the underground operations, including: OptiMine® Monitoring, Location Tracking and Mine Visualization, Scheduler, Task Management and OptiMine® Analytics, the latter with IBM Watson IoT. The system will be commissioned in 2019.

For this program, Sandvik is proud to partner with Newtrax Technologies Inc., which will deliver personnel tracking with cap lamps, tracking and telemetry data for the entire mobile underground fleet, including non-Sandvik equipment, numbering more than 150 drills, loaders, trucks and other equipment. The Newtrax offering will be seamlessly integrated with the Sandvik OptiMine® digital platform creating an integrated mine management solution at the SK mine.

“We at Hindustan Zinc are leveraging digital solutions to improve our availability, utilization and productivity at the Sindesar Khurd (SK) Mine,” said Sunil Duggal, CEO at Hindustan Zinc Limited. “With OptiMine® we will be able to plan, schedule and monitor overall operations in real time. This will add major value and increase our productivity, eliminating bottlenecks, and allowing us to measure and monitor our key performance indicators in real time, proactively addressing problems before they occur.”

Hindustan Zinc is one of the world’s largest integrated producers of zinc and among leading global lead and silver producers. Hindustan Zinc’s core business comprises of mining and smelting of zinc and lead along with captive power generation. It has a metal production capacity of more than one million tonnes per annum with lead-zinc mines in Rampura Agucha and Sindesar Khurd; and key modern smelting complexes in Chanderiya and Dariba, all in the state of Rajasthan in India.

SK Mine is a highly mechanised world-class underground mine with an annual ore production capacity of 5.5 million MT. The mine’s products are zinc concentrate and lead concentrate. The mining method used is blast hole open stoping.

OptiMine® is a powerful suite of digital solutions for analyzing and optimizing mining production and processes. It integrates all relevant data into one source, delivering both real-time and predictive insights to improve operations. OptiMine® is open, scalable, and adaptable to automated and manual applications.

“Sandvik OptiMine® modules can be combined as needed to build up the required functionality and to optimize mining operations. With open interfaces, the solution can also be integrated to other mine IT systems. This interoperability is crucial in enabling our customers to leverage the full value of digitalization” says Patrick Murphy, President Product Area Rock Drills and Technologies at Sandvik Mining and Rock Technology, and continues:

“Vedanta Hindustan Zinc has a vision of what the mine of the future will look like, and we’re excited to collaborate with them to make it happen at SK Mine. The capability of this system will be virtually unmatched globally in underground hard rock mining in terms of both scope and scale. ”

OptiMine® Analytics, with IBM Watson IoT, is the next generation of OptiMine® that transforms data into process improvement via predictive insights and actionable dashboards embedded into your operation management systems. The solution is part of the digital partnership between Sandvik Mining and Rock Technology and IBM, and is backed by Sandvik and IBM digital experts around the globe.

Sandvik Group

Sandvik is a high-tech and global engineering group offering products and services that enhance customer productivity, profitability and safety. We hold world-leading positions in selected areas – tools and tooling systems for metal cutting; equipment and tools, service and technical solutions for the mining and construction industries; products in advanced stainless steels and special alloys as well as products for industrial heating. In 2017, the Group had approximately 43,000 employees and sales of 91 billion SEK in more than 150 countries within continuing operations.

Sandvik Mining and Rock Technology

Sandvik Mining and Rock Technology is a business area within the Sandvik Group and a global leading supplier of equipment and tools, service and technical solutions for the mining and construction industries. Application areas include rock drilling, rock cutting, crushing and screening, loading and hauling, tunneling, quarrying and breaking and demolition. In 2017, sales were approximately 37 billion SEK with about 15,000 employees in continuing operations.

Newtrax Technologies Inc.

Newtrax Technologies Inc. is the global leader in wireless IoT, safety, and productivity solutions for the global underground hard rock mining industry. Newtrax customers are the largest producers of metals in the world and their underground hard rock mechanized mines rely on Newtrax systems to save lives, reduce costs and increase production with unprecedented levels of real-time data from machines, people and the environment.