Newcrest mining
My role // Lead designer
Activities undertaken // Design strategy, innovation funnel, customer interviews, rapid prototyping, usability testing
Challenge
Newcrest Mining Ltd is one of the top five gold mining companies in the world.
They lacked a cohesive technological solution to manage all the various stages of mining such as ore sampling, blasting, transportation, crushing and extraction. All the processes were being manually managed in silos without any interaction between their mining departments which was prone to frequent human errors.
Newcrest were looking for an innovative technology concept using Big Data and Artificial Intelligence to solve this problem.
Approach
First, we set out on a journey to understand the mining process in detail.
We interviewed 7 Geologists, over a dozen mining truck drivers, engineers and mining managers.
Second, we unpacked what data was available for us to use. It included the velocity, variety and variability of the data sources.
In the end, we decided to use AI and Big data to build a prototype that can be tested by all the parties involved in the mining process.
Outcome
We produced a concept application named Aura that can be used by geologists, engineers, mining operators and analysts.
With the help of Big Data, the AI engine was able to predict the best blasting patterns. This saved a week's worth of time and cost.
Geologists were able to reduce the timeframe required for Ore Testing from 3 days to 4 hours.
Engineers were able to remotely view Ore quality before it arrived at their station increasing their efficiency by 30%.
There was an overall human error reduction by 80%, saving about $4m each month.
