Weir Minerals develops data usage enabling sustainability

Mining organisations are working closely with technology providers to enable environmental, social, and governance (ESG) success through digital solutions. Better use of data is now an important goal for all organisations and, in the mining industry, leaders are partnering up to come up with the best sustainability insights. 

Weir Minerals, the mining subsidiary of Weir Group, provide technology solutions to support mine operators overcome health and safety and productivity challenges. The firm has been working with AVEVA, a leader in industrial software development, and has signed a digital business framework for strategic cooperation that will accelerate digital transformation and encourage sustainability in mining.

Technology solutions enable mining sustainability

The firms will work together on the project, which will provide Weir Minerals access to the AVEVA PI System. The solution will allow the specialist technology provider to collect, analyse and report data as the base for its Synertrex digital ecosystem. 

“The AVEVA PI System is an established industrial data management solution that’s currently used by nine of the top ten Fortune 500 mining companies,” says Ole Knudsen, Director Digital at Weir Minerals. 

“The proven and secure PI System enables us to build a series of Asset Framework templates for our equipment, making it a secure yet simple plug and play exercise to connect our equipment to our customers’ digital ecosystems. This will enable the critical first steps of a structured and standardised data approach.”

Leveraging the improved use of data, Weir Minerals will provide its clients with full data transparency and form the foundation of its developments in digital twins and predictive algorithms. The company will also benefit from AVEVA’s real-time data management to improve sustainability in terms of water consumption and power usage. 

Rónán de Hooge, Executive Vice President of Information Management at AVEVA, says: “We’re very excited to work with Weir Minerals to deliver mining operators smart analytics to drive industrial transformation. AVEVA’s ability to collect real-time performance data in any location and deliver it securely to the Synertrex platform will give operators new insight into the health of their assets and help them optimize maintenance and avoid costly downtime.”

Knudsen says: “With the addition of the new AVEVA Data Hub and Weir Minerals’ Synertrex solutions, we’re in a unique position as an OEM to offer our customers a real game-changing approach to a flexible data sharing strategy. This will be the foundation of our data and intelligence-driven digital optimisation solutions; this is how Weir Minerals will transform and enable more sustainable mining operations.”