JV Article: Mining companies should approach digital transformation as a ‘marathon, not a sprint,’ says Cameco’s Mark Leach

Mining corporations that embrace electronic transformation can minimize their charges, increase earnings, and make improvements to protection and environmental performance, in accordance to Mark Leach, vice-president of business enterprise technological know-how providers for Cameco (TSX: COO NYSE: CCJ).

He says that digitalization “allows perform processes to be streamlined, and delivers the knowledge important for far better choice-creating and strengthening operational efficiencies.”

A pure-play nuclear gas organization, Cameco is a person of the world’s most significant uranium producers, with functions and investments across 3 continents that span the nuclear gasoline cycle from exploration to gas producing.

According to Leach, the company adopted digital transformation to boost productivity, basic safety, and sustainability by optimizing its organization methods and functions.

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Joshua Mercredi, senior approach operator, analyzes data on web site at Cameco’s Cigar Lake mine in northern Saskatchewan. Cameco image

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“We had been looking for chances that drove bigger productivity and efficiency by integrating digitization into our day-to-working day organization procedures,” he explains. “We also required to push a society of innovation across the organization that produced tangible rewards for our staff members, stakeholders, and shareholders.”

When businesses in the early days of digital transformation frequently “chased the newest shiny toy,” notes Leach, he claims that numerous of them “ended up expending a ton of time and work — and often a massive amount of money of funds — without any tangible impacts on their business efficiency.”

So, we tried using to learn from these companies and sought to do it differently by selecting the digital technologies and tools that would make sense for our small business and that we would derive value from,” he claims.

To guarantee Cameco fulfilled the small business objectives of its electronic transformation software, the organization has selected six electronic themes to manual it via the digitization system.

These include things like robotic and operational components automation built-in mining and preparing simulation and asset optimization modern day place of work artificial intelligence (which includes machine learning) and analytics and selection help.

Leach suggests that its method to robotic and operational automation features both of those mechanical and software program automation. “This lets for clever method automation that can increase the performance of the procedural things to do frequent to all mining organizations these as finance, procurement, and routine maintenance.”

Whereas the integration of mining and organizing, he says, is supporting to strengthen Cameco’s day-to-working day operations at its mining areas “by searching to see what is available on the Industrial Online of Items (IIoT) for functions these kinds of as brief interval manage and scheduling, and mine organizing, administration, asset administration and dependability, and optimization.”

He adds that the corporation is also checking out digital twinning, which entails “the generation of a virtual representation of a process that is current utilizing real-time details, and then works by using simulation and asset optimization to guidance enhanced determination-earning.”

Leach suggests the last two digital themes of Cameco’s electronic transformation software — synthetic intelligence (AI) and analytics and determination aid —were divided from each individual other as the company considered them as two distinct parts of application.

“If any enterprise states that it has a electronic system and does not incorporate these very last two parts, then I would say they don’t have a electronic plan,” he notes.

For case in point, he suggests that AI and equipment understanding enable predictive analytics to boost asset administration by pinpointing possible faults or issues with tools in advance of they come about, main to more productive servicing preparing.

Whilst information is “absolutely elementary to the digital transformation of your company’s operations,” claims Leach, he also sounds a be aware of warning.

“The use of AI and device understanding generates tonnes of details, with a ton of it not of ample top quality to conduct meaningful examination and analysis.”

Thus, he thinks that mining businesses really should ensure they have a base data ability, both in-household or externally, to regulate the huge sum of data.

The electronic transformation of a business’s functions, claims Leach, also involves substantial engagement and collaboration amongst employees and “so must be seen as a marathon, not a sprint.”

To take care of this information stream and unlock enhanced personnel productiveness, Cameco is making use of current systems this sort of as Microsoft 365 and SharePoint.

“We’ve been employing these systems to rework our info centres and boost distant do the job capabilities for some time, and has allowed lots of of our workforce to perform remotely a couple of times a week because about 2016,” says Leach.

For that reason, he notes that the business was well well prepared to take up the impacts of the Covid-19 pandemic into its business enterprise continuity planning processes.

Performing with a neighborhood tech lover, Cameco made the Powerbar notion, and embedded it as part of Microsoft Teams, which provides specialized assistance with instant responses to “how-to” issues through dwell video chats with industry experts.

“A great deal of our staff members are carrying out bodily actions, so a pc is an incidental aspect of their working day and not their concentration,” states Leach. “The Powerbar has established particularly powerful for distant coaching, and so we are now seeking to broaden its use to encompass other applications over and above Microsoft 365.”

The previous Joint-Venture Report is PROMOTED Information sponsored by WBM Technologies INC. and created in cooperation with The Northern Miner. Go to www.wbm.ca for much more data.