The largest mining construction boom ever has come to an end and with it, one of the golden ages of mining innovation.

Or has it?

For almost a decade mining equipment suppliers have been pushed by customers to give a little bit more with each iteration of equipment.

However, at the end of the day, mining is still pretty much the same business it always has been. It is just that the equipment doing the mining has gotten a lot bigger and more powerful.

During the boom the mining equipment makers thought big. They started to look at ways they could make equipment more efficient and safer. They looked at ways they could reduce operating costs. More importantly for their bottom lines, they looked at how they could make more machines more quickly.

But was there really any thought to how mining was actually done and whether there could be better ways of doing it? Looking from the sidelines it would have to be said, in most cases, no.

Yes, there have been efforts to speed up the development of underground workings using clever twists on tunnel boring machines. Sure there have been advances in how shafts are cut – although those largely revolve around bigger machines. These days a raisebore can cut a 10m diameter shaft, a figure thought impossible even five years before.

This though is really just moving down the path of simply making a machine bigger.

Remote control technology has advanced to the point where machines can drive themselves to and from loading and dumping points. Rio Tinto is in the vanguard of this but both BHP Billiton and Fortescue Metals Group are running their own trials.

That said, one of the biggest challenges still remains – getting a machine to load by itself. Working out how to get the machine to realise when the bucket is overloaded is still too great a task.

So where will the drive come from for mining equipment suppliers to make smarter pieces of equipment?

The big investment budgets are no longer there. This is a time when miners are looking to cut their costs. The latest to go down that path is Alcoa, which is looking at each of its smelters and alumina refineries and working out which will stay and which will go.

And perhaps most tellingly has been the move by Rio Tinto to seemingly shut down its innovation arm. Its board decided the time had come to put its innovation money where its mouth was and start getting some real returns.

Add to that is the fact that the large original equipment manufacturers have been on their own cost cutting binges, dropping staff and pinching off research and development projects.

Supply Side suspects it is this very cost cutting approach that will drive the next bursts of innovation.

It will likely come, not in large new pieces of yellow or orange equipment but in small changes to the way that equipment is used to get better outcomes.

More attention will be paid to getting better pictures of where the ore is and on how to better get it out.

More attention will be paid to drill and blast techniques to make sure the rock is broken better and thrown where it needs to be.

More attention will be paid to training staff so they can perform at their best.

More attention will also be paid to giving mine management a better picture of how an operation is running.

Beyond that, some attention will be paid to some of those vexing questions, such as how to better grind ore. At the moment the machines doing it – those giant ball and semi-autogenous grinding mills – are extremely inefficient. Indeed, their massive electricity loads have to be factored into any mining planning.

Rio reaps robot rewards

While Rio Tinto may have closed down its innovation arm, its worth has been proven.

Out of that innovation arm came things such as the Processing Excellence Centre, the Remote Operating Centre, the Autonomous Haulage System – or robot trucks – and the AutoHaul, or robot trains, system.

In its annual report Rio said the Processing Excellence Centre it opened last year had driven significant improvements at its Oyu Tolgoi and Kennecott operations.

The PEC links experts with operations across the globe in real-time, which has helped improve concentrator performance.

“During an industrial-scale chalcopyrite heap leaching demonstration at Kennecott, the group achieved expected copper extraction targets,” the Rio Tinto annual report said.

“The Growth & Innovation team is now conducting laboratory tests at its Bundoora facility

near Melbourne, Australia with the aim of enhancing leaching recovery further. This will allow the group to develop chalcopyrite deposits such as La Granja more efficiently.”

Rio Tinto’s copper group is working with a variety of partners in areas such as the development of safer and more productive underground mining equipment and processes, as well as technologies for dynamic measurement of underground rock mass and caving performance. The goal of these projects is to significantly improve safety and productivity during construction and operation of underground mines.

Of course the biggest star in the Rio Tinto innovation constellation was The Mine of the Future program.

Bits of that have been operating for some time and the benefits are starting to be counted.

At Hope Downs 4 mine, Rio’s robot trucks exceeded the Iron Ore Pilbara site with the highest manned effective utilisation by 14% and decreased load and haul operating costs by about 13%.

Hope Downs 4 and Namuldi became the first fully operational robot truck sites with 19 Komatsu 830E Autonomous Haulage System trucks at Hope Downs 4 and 25 Komatsu 930E AHS trucks at Nammuldi.

Another 13 930E AHS trucks are also in operation at Yandicoogina.

However, the biggest surprise was the progress made towards AutoHaul, the world’s first autonomous heavy-haul rail system, with the first autonomous train journey at the end of last year.