My personal reflections on nearly 5 years of leading digital and then data at the world's largest miner; scale, business case, risks, and practical lessons

1. 7 Lessons on Mining Automation
whilst driving Digital Transformation
at BHP
April 2021
with Coert du Plessis, DataAlchemists, +61406313111 @coertdup
DataAlchemists
Note: All views are my
personal reflections and not
endorsed by BHP or other
organisations I work with

2. 7 Lessons on Mining Automation
whilst driving Digital Transformation
at BHP
April 2021
with Coert du Plessis, DataAlchemists, +61406313111 @coertdup
DataAlchemists
^
6
Note: All views are my
personal reflections and not
endorsed by BHP or other
organisations I work with

3. #1
data quality
∝

4. #1
data quality eats
automation capital
for BREAKFAST
∝

5. Safety Share…

6. Data quality risk grows with each copy and store

7. Data quality and ownership is better in a network

8. Solving for Data Owners simplifies Data Quality 10x!

11. In a network of data, you’re a customer and a supplier
Equipment Domain:
1. Data about comms towers
2. Data about fuel stations
3. Data about trucks
Mine Planning Domain
1. Data about Mine Plan
2. Data about Truck schedules
3. Data about circuits
Geospatial Domain
1. Data about stockpiles
2. Data about roads
3. Data about mine design

12. #2
beware how things are
∝

13. #2
beware how things are
and fight CONWAY’s law
∝

14. Beware Conway's law
Source: Conway’s Law
https://www.thoughtworks.com/insights/articles/
demystifying-conways-law
“Any organisation that designs a system
will inevitably produce a design whose
structure is a copy of the organization’s
structure”

15. beware how things are…
The expertise to schedule variable and highly
adaptive people
…does not translate to
…a schedule for rigid and complex machines

16. #3
HUMANS are amazing!
∝

17. #3
HUMANS are amazing!
…and business cases contort to
prove otherwise
∝

18. 2016 Paul Oakley, as we started up the innovation mine

19. Elon confirmed and owned it two years later

20. Business cases beyond the amazing humans
• If your business case predominantly contains labor arbitrage - stop! You
are in for a lot of pain – and risk
• Uptime hours is obvious, but is the Mine Design, Planning and operating
financial parameters also updated? Narrower roads? Driving times
through blast risk zones reflected as shorter in the schedule?
• Invisible costs? Networks uptime @99%. Missing the “other work” people
ordinarily do. Sunk capital cost? Downtime from connectivity loss?
• Who asks the hard questions? Peer pressure in the boardroom?

21. #4
people investment
∝

22. #4
people investment
Gets you the MASTERY multiplier
∝

23. Mastery: Graham Reynolds
Head of Autonomous Haulage Australia at BHP

24. People investment to Mastery = Investment Multiplier

25. #5
be clear how you play with others
∝

26. #5
be clear how you play with others
who pays? innovates? learns? sell?
∝

27. The competition for automation is not in mining…
Data
from
2018

28. The OEM return on Investment in mining is not evident
Of which
50,000 are
big surface
trucks (2020)
Data
from
2018

29. ~20 years = 1% of fleet automated in mining
Of which
50,000 are
big surface
trucks (2020)
Automated
trucks
~800
Data
from
2018

30. The Autonomy Market is fragmented in mining
Urban Mining
Investment $$$ à
$5b+ VC
$80b+ research
$100+m VC
<$1b research
Leaders à
Size of the prize à 1.4 b vehicles
(UPS has 1.2m vehicles alone!)
88,000 mobile fleet
50,000 trucks

31. The “plays” are
• Partnering with OEM all in
• Partnering with part players (multi-modal)
• Learning yourself, do yourself

32. #6
built to last
∝ SKIP

33. #6
built to last
built to change
∝ SKIP

34. #7
everyone has to play
∝

35. #7
everyone has to play
not to win… to know how
∝

36. Think different about the investment
• Automation is inevitable -- $/t if done right means only some
operators in the future
• Approach: Copying “Digital Agile” verbatim can kill someone; you
can’t be 80% right. Lean test and learn approach saves $.
• Portfolio =/= equipment; automation portfolio = learnings
• Cascading of automation knowhow:
Trucks à LTE Networks à Dispatch automation à Fixed Plant automation à Mine Plan automation

37. Business case is
investing in
knowhow
Today:

38. Success is
knowhow
in action
Tomorrow:

39. ∝
Questions