The mining sector is in the midst of a digital revolution, with 93 per cent of businesses currently trialling Internet of Things (IoT) enabled projects, with two thirds of these having already deployed at least one IoT-based project.

This is according to a survey commissioned by Inmarsat and carried out by Vanson Bourne among 200 senior staff working for mining companies with at least 500 employees.

The research revealed that motivations for adopting IoT vary, though three of the top five predictably relate to driving efficiencies and ultimately operating profits: improving the return on investment (39 per cent), increasing staff productivity (39 per cent) and increasing throughput (36 per cent).

Looking at the different types of IoT projects that have been successfully deployed versus the drivers for adoption yields showed that use cases with the most successful deployments were monitoring the health and safety of mining personnel (36 per cent), followed by the monitoring of drilling (32 per cent), monitoring of acid mine drainage (30 per cent) and monitoring of water quality (27 per cent).

IoT use cases that could make a big difference to overall efficiencies and profits such as vehicle telemetry (10 per cent), shipment and supply chain tracking (nine per cent) and automated vehicle haulage (eight per cent) were among the least developed areas of IoT deployment.

While it is clear IoT is being adopted, it is not yet proving to be the panacea that many believe it will be, as a result of the challenges hampering easy deployment. When asked to score whether their organisations had achieved their expected benefits from IoT deployment, only in regard to the health and safety of staff did more respondents report having achieved their objectives (55 per cent) versus having not achieved their objectives (45 per cent).

A lack of adequate IT infrastructure is also a significant barrier to adoption, with only 16 per cent of respondents stating that they always have reliable connectivity for IoT projects across their mine sites.

There was a clear link between those who have managed to fully deploy an IoT project and the level of reliable connectivity they can access. Of the 130 respondents who had fully deployed an IoT project, just 22 per cent struggled to access reliable connectivity across their mine sites. On the other hand, the 70 respondents who hadn’t yet fully deployed solutions were much more likely to be struggling with connectivity (89 per cent).

With 44 per cent of mining organisations reporting that they were not able to aggregate their data due to a lack of edge computing infrastructure, it was no surprise to see the relatively limited adoption of the new wave of wireless data collection technologies. One reason for this may be related to the top inhibitor of edge aggregation, which was a lack of the relevant skills (48 per cent).

A lack of skills to successfully develop, deploy and manage IoT has been a continuing theme throughout Inmarsat’s research into the mining sector, with 46 per cent of respondents declaring that skill shortages are the most significant barrier in the development and deployment of IoT-based solutions.

This aligns with previous research published in 2018, where there was also a clear pattern of both practical, hands-on experience of IoT-based solutions and the mining industry being in short supply. As 94 per cent of respondents acknowledged, the biggest concern was the lack of staff with digital skills, which is hindering the industry’s digital transformation efforts.

Another linked issue was the damage that a cyber attack could trigger and the range of threats now being faced as adoption of IoT technologies increases. In particular, the insecure storage of collected data (56 per cent), employees misusing data (54 per cent), insecure network links to external infrastructure (49 per cent) and ransomware or malware (45 per cent) were the most highly ranked security risks to respondents’ organisations.

The research indicated that a probable explanation for the relatively low level of movement to address security vulnerabilities is the skill shortages across different levels of seniority and key stakeholder positions. Over half (64 per cent) of respondents reported lacking the level of security skills required when it comes to successfully delivering IoT-based solutions.

Joe Carr, global mining director at Inmarsat, stated that there are significant challenges to overcome: connectivity is often unreliable, cyber security approaches are patchy, there are too few employees with digital skills and data is not being collected and managed in a way that would best empower organisations.

“The mining industry has historically been slow to adopt radical ideas and it is clear that although miners are keen on the benefits IoT brings, the largely unproven outcomes are hampering the industry’s wide scale adoption.

“This approach threatens to leave the industry with a two-speed market, early adopters who are benefitting from reduced costs and better efficiencies and laggards who risk losing market share as they are pushed up the cost curve of production,” he continued, adding that the outlook is still bright.

“Mining organisations are looking to increase their investment in IoT and are overwhelmingly positive about the value of IoT to their operations and the benefits it is either already delivering or will deliver in the future.”

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