We speak with Marni Rabassó, Vice President, Natural Resources at Dassault Systèmes about the state of the industry, key trends and future predictions as we get ready for MINExpo. 
What are some key areas of focus for the global mining industry right now?
There are a number of issues that are top of mind for the mining industry – operational excellence and innovation. The former focuses on the desire for mining companies to make their operating mines leaner. The latter is about the need for the mining industry to innovate given the point it has reached, where its level of productivity in relation to profit margins is not sustainable.
Both issues require significant changes in mining, but also the adoption of new kinds of technology in the industry to run its businesses and drive productivity. There is a lot of interest in the Internet of Things for mining, the meaning of big data and analytics and how they can be employed are a few examples of this. The role of cloud-based computing and global collaboration are other conversations happening in mining.
We are also seeing an increased focus on how technology can address the challenges posed by deposits that are more remotely located and also how it can help companies get more out of their existing properties.
It’s been four years since the last MINExpo, have there been any major technology changes or emerging technologies we should be watching?
The biggest change is mining’s recognition that there is a lot they can learn from other industries about how they use technology. Several years ago, when mining came off of a peak period of demand and prices, it had reached a point where its margins were becoming squeezed to such an extent where it really had to re-examine the importance of efficiency through its business.
Looking to the transformations undertaken by leaders in other industries, such as Toyota, the starting place was stability of operating processes. Following this stabilization, it is possible to progress through to enterprise agility which permits a more rapid adaption to changing market conditions or business strategy.
Do you have any future industry predictions you’d like to share?
I’m really excited about the possibilities that the virtual world will unlock for collaboration and communication. Not only will virtual versions of mining operations provide people with a better understanding of how they work, and how they can be improved, I believe they will spark a lot of really interesting conversations that will trigger innovation.
Through the virtual world, in what I’ll call “the Virtual Mine”, provided by Dassault Systèmes, our customers will connect the best and brightest minds in their enterprise and ecosystem together to discover innovations and try them out and prove them before implementing them in the real one. The “Virtual Mine” is a platform for innovation by being the environment to try out challenging ideas that would never be explored in real life due to risk of failure or cost. It offers immersive, 3D simulation which allow all ideas, small and large, to be explored, so they can be proved and improved upon before being implemented in the real world.
With Dassault Systèmes’ 3DEXPERIENCE platform, we enable mining companies to understand every aspect of their business and the operations that drive them. It digitalizes all aspects of their business, starting with the modeling of the commodity underground, through the planning and execution of its extraction, processing and delivery to market.
Mining companies already collect a lot of data through sensors and can leverage this data in the virtual world to make operational decisions. Thanks to this, our customers will gain new insights into their businesses and the processes that drive them, to improve them continuously.
What should MINExpo attendees look forward to seeing at this year’s event?
We are going to take visitors from mining companies and their industrial equipment suppliers on a “transformative innovation journey” at the Dassault Systèmes booth (#2453). Through interactive and immersive experiences, we will show them how they can engineer better plans and designs and execute them for optimal results.
In the booth, we will have four “themed” areas, with sections for mining (Natural Resources) companies and Industrial Equipment suppliers, where visitors can learn about innovative solutions that will impact various areas of their business.
Visitors to the Natural Resources pods will discover how we can help them produce optimal mine plans, improve their annual planning process, and then execute their plans at their operations for maximum productivity and economic return. Industrial Equipment pods will take visitors on a journey from the design of a new piece of mining equipment, in this case an excavator; all the way through to showing them a new service 3DS can enable them to offer their customers which will improve equipment efficiency and uptime.
For those who are interested in learning about the latest trends in the mining industry and technological innovations, we will also have a presentation theatre. As presentations will be running continuously in the morning until mid-afternoon across all three days of the show, visitors can view the complete schedule here.
And finally, we are also delighted to have as the centerpiece of our booth an immersive virtual reality experience, where visitors will be able to “walk through” and explore mine tunnels, providing them with a simulated experience of a real world mine site.
Read more about Dassault Systèmes at MINExpo or book a meeting with us.
Mark Bese
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