Published in the March 2011 Australian Longwall Magazine

Jobs lost to automation technology are most evident in the car manufacturing, electronics and packaging industries, as purposedesigned industrial robots productively take over manual tasks.

Automation is coming to Australia’s mining industry, but the most immediate workforce impacts are appearing in the open cut scene.

In June Rio Tinto hit a key milestone of its Mine of the Future goals, opening a new operations centre in Perth to progressively take control of its West Angeles mine 1500 kilometres away and into the future Pilbara iron ore mining and logistical operations.

Mining Industry Skills Centre chief executive officer Derek Hunter said this “high end” of automation is where the biggest impacts to heavy equipment operator roles will be seen.

Even maintenance management roles will be located in operations centres into the future, he told Australian Longwall Magazine.

While he expects about half of Australia’s mines to be involved in automation within ten years, he said totally automated mines will be a smaller percentage.

Yet Rio could be at the forefront of other automation advances outside of the Pilbara.

“I think Rio is clearly looking to achieve an underground mine outcome within five years,” Hunter said.

“I think we are going to see the first open

cut coal mine fully autonomous within about four years. And that will be here in Queensland.”

For longwall mine expansions and projects, he said the existing paradigm of looking at operators as the first line of requirement could continue for the next five to seven years.

First impacts from a shift towards a new paradigm of automated longwall mines could be four years away, he said.

But he suspects that most mines will slowly introduce automation.

“Therefore I think we will see a mix of opportunities and roles continuing.

“But long term, I don’t think there is any question that we are going to see a fundamental change in the demographic of employment for mining.”

While Eickhoff works with the Longwall Automation Steering Committee and the CSIRO to develop seam detection sensor technology, personnel at the

shearer manufacturer have observed some apprehension from crews.

Eickhoff automation and projects engineer Stephen Douglas said longwall automation was not aiming to reduce employment.

“The impetus is more on taking the risk away from our workers and also to get to the stage where we achieve consistency with our production,” he told Australian Longwall Magazine.

Viewing the emerging technology as a tool and not a threat, Douglas said shearer operators will be able to focus more on their safety.

Even with an advanced automated shearer of the future, he said one operator will still need to keep an eye on it.

But another operator will be free from the risks at the face to take care of logistical and manual tasks, whether it be moving a monorail, or bringing in spare parts and mining consumables to and from the longwall panel.

Perhaps one of the biggest signs that longwall automation might not be a significant threat to longwall jobs comes from the union.

While the Queensland branch of the Construction Forestry Mining and Energy Union has considered the matter, the union views that the physical aspect of people is still required to ensure safety.

The union also believes horizon control remains a big issue to development of longwall automation, particularly in the thicker-seam Queensland mines where roof conditions are problematic.

A key concern of mining companies is a looming skills shortage for maintainers of the new automated equipment.

MISC carried out a large awareness campaign last year to spread the findings of its Automation for Success report, which predicted automation implementation to peak in 2020.

The first course for automation technicians is expected to be available in six months.