Charting a course for tomorrow

Understanding Customer Challenges: The Key Driver of Orica's Innovation and Technology Roadmap.

Technology advancements are transforming the mining and infrastructure sectors, propelling them towards safer, more efficient and responsible operations. The demand for innovative blasting techniques and digital solutions is on the rise, as customers embrace solutions that facilitate real-time, data-driven decision-making and whole of value chain optimisation.

As mines go deeper and ore bodies become more complex and remote, the need for innovative technological solutions that elevate safety standards, enhance productivity and promote social responsibility is critical.

Additionally, climate change and decarbonisation continue to be a core focus that drives innovation. With the push towards energy transition, we find ourselves at a pivotal moment in time when our industry must rise to the challenge.

In this issue of Blasting and Beyond, we explore how these factors drive Orica’s technology and innovation roadmap to deliver solutions that address both current and future challenges faced by our customers.

Innovation is in our DNA

For the past 150 years Orica has been investing in technology and innovation to deliver blasting products and solutions that are safe, best in class and ready when you need them.

Orica is currently leveraging AI, IoT, and automation with the goal to revolutionise the industry for safer, smarter, and more efficient operations. Orica Digital Solutions are leading integration across the value chain with advancements in software that promise to drive the next generation of technology and innovation. By seamlessly connecting our customers’ physical and digital worlds, they can understand and optimise their operations at every step, from exploration to processing.

Right now, we are connecting both these worlds for surface mining with the integration of our BlastIQ™ and 4D™ Bulk system. The BlastIQ™ platform offers digital enablement that delivers full control throughout the blasting process. This includes advanced 3D modelling, which eliminates excessive drilling and explosives consumption, to systemised access and implementation of design and loading rules. When integrated with Orica's 4D™ Bulk delivery system, it enables precise, predictable, and automated management of energy during the blasting process.

“Our end-to-end ecosystem connects the digital world to real-world actions within the operation, giving customers timely insights across their operations. This then allows us to translate those insights into critical intelligence for better decisions and more predictable outcomes in near real-time. We can support our customers in their journey by moving them from the traditional disconnected silos to connected workflows to reduce risk, create efficiencies and improve outcomes in a sustainable manner.”

Rajkumar Mathiravedu, Senior Vice President - Orica Digital Solutions

Discussion: Digital Technology Innovation in the Mining Industry

David Reyes from Orica Digital Solutions, recently sat down with Mining Now to discuss digital technology innovations within the mining industry. He shared Orica’s vision to deliver fully integrated mine-to-mill software solutions, and the vast range of benefits our technologies provide within the drill and blast domain.

Discussion: Design for Outcome and the Integrated Extraction Simulator

In Mining Now’s latest episode, Angelo Labriola and Greg Shapland, discuss two of Orica Digital Solutions’ innovative technologies Design for Outcome and the Integrated Extraction Simulator and how they are applied to optimise operations now and into the future.

But what lies ahead?

Our future technology and innovation roadmap is influenced by the challenges that face our customers and our industry, it guides our research and development process and maintains our focus on finding innovative solutions to our customers’ emerging challenges.

The industry is facing increasing challenges related to productivity and recovery as commodity demands shift, and the need to access more remote and deeper ore deposits increases.

Mining and minerals processing have become increasingly complex. At a time when productivity and sustainability targets are constantly evolving, deciding on the best path to take an operation to another level of performance is often a challenging prospect.

Globally, there is an increasing focus on the social and environmental performance of mining and mineral processing operations, particularly in areas where these activities are impacting or encroaching on communities. 

While historically blasting has been at the core of our business we are now pioneering a new path to expand the next generation of technology solutions for blasting and beyond across the value chain. Our new digital and automated technologies and solutions are enabling industry to think differently, and operate more efficiently, precisely, and responsibly to reduce our customers total cost of ownership, enhance their social responsibility and ensure they have sustainable access to ore in the future.

“The entire industry is moving rapidly towards an automated and digitally integrated future. At Orica, we are focused on unlocking mining value for our customers, utilising these digital and automated technologies to create safer, predictable, and more productive outcomes.”

Adam Mooney, Vice President – Research & Innovation.

Imagine a future where real-time monitoring of blasts and infrastructure, predictive analytics for drill patterns, and autonomous vehicles loading explosives is possible. Where AI predicts rock behaviour, optimises blasts, and automates tasks to enhance safety and efficiency.

To bring this future to life, it is necessary to think and dream beyond just what we can achieve in the blasting process. Real time data to enable decision-making is key to the revolution required in our industry. It is the digital and automated solutions that create integrated workflows across a site that will allow a customer to optimise their entire operations.

Orica Digital Solutions cloud based digital platforms puts choice and control in the hands of our customers.

Upstream from blasting Orebody Intelligence can help customers better understand the orebody from the waste before blasting and the extraction process. Deployed together or individually our Blast Design and Execution solutions ensure greater precision and predictability, giving the right intelligence at the right time to optimise blast outcomes. Orica Digital Solutions has been bolstered with the acquisition of Terra Insights and is now the global leader in downstream geotechnical and structural monitoring in mining and civil infrastructure markets around the world giving our customers certainty they need to make critical decisions with confidence.

GroundProbe and Terra Insights, now united under Orica Digital Solutions, merge innovative geotechnical and structural monitoring technologies.

Today, our people are busy in labs and on bench, testing, building and creating new code and uncovering patterns that will unlock efficiency and safety across the value chain.

Imagine a future where the cost structure of mining can be completely changed because of a novel environmentally friendly mining technology that minimises ore extraction and haulage. A mining method that allows operations to overcome the challenging dilemma of increased demand for critical minerals whilst committing to sustainability.

Well, we are working on that today as well. Just recently Orica received a $2.4M Cooperative Research Centre’s Program Grant from the Australian Government, in collaboration with the University of Adelaide, BHP, and Core Resources. This industry-led research endeavour, known as the In-Place Recovery. This collaborative project aims to develop innovative mining techniques that will enable the sustainable extraction of critical minerals while improving safety and reducing energy and water consumption for our customers.

Our commitment to research-led innovation remains unwavering. As we step into the next era, we will push the boundaries of what’s possible in mining, civil infrastructure and beyond; and we look forward to achieving this in partnership with our customers and the industry.

The future of mining, with Orica

As we set our sights on the future, we are excited about the opportunities that lie ahead. We remain committed to providing sustainable solutions and technology to mobilise the earth's resources and we look forward to another 150 years of success and delivering value to our customers, employees, communities, and shareholders.  

Want to enquire about a product or service featured in this newsletter? Contact Orica.