The latest research study conducted by Inmarsat, the world leader in global, mobile satellite communications, found that the global mining sector is undergoing an Internet of Things (IoT) revolution with respondents reporting significant increases in adoption of connected technologies.
‘The Rise of IoT in Mining’ is the third IoT-focused research project undertaken by Inmarsat and focuses on the use of, attitude to and predictions for IoT across the global mining sector.
According to the research, most organisations (65%) have fully deployed at least one IoT project, while 33% are trialling or have trialled a project, with only 2% of respondents not having begun an IoT project. These findings echo the predictions reported in Inmarsat’s 2018 mining research, where only 2% had fully deployed an IoT solution, 29% were trialling one and 69% were planning on beginning IoT projects within the next two years.
While this increase in full deployments represents progress, the use cases and data management are on the simple side and there are many challenges to overcome if the mining industry is to fully realise the potential of IoT, particularly in regard to using it as driver for organisational change. A lack of skills, investment and cultural challenges, as well as unreliable connectivity, patchy cybersecurity processes and under developed data management processes were also highlighted in the report and will all need to remedied in the coming years.
The mining industry faces significant challenges around skills, security, connectivity, investment and data management and these will need to be addressed for the industry to progress past a point of using IoT in a simple, siloed capacity. Despite the challenges being faced, mining organisations are looking to increase their investment in IoT and are overwhelmingly positive about the value of that the IoT can bring to their operations and the benefits it is either already delivering or will deliver in the future.
