Page 187 - Jan 2013

January 2013 | Business World Magazine | 187
data integration is costing the industry mil-
lions of dollars. It is these kinds of issues that
make the SmartMine platform such a good
investment.
Another challenge that SmartMine
can help to alleviate: resource availability.
“Most mining companies are still out there
advertising for more people. My question
to the industry is: ‘Does it really take more
people to do what they want to do? Have
they had a really close look at what they’ve
got, and if they can improve the way they do
their operations?’” By optimizing their pro-
cesses, he says mines can achieve higher reli-
ability from their equipment and from their
people, and that adopting technology is an
enabler for that sort of change. “That’s what
we believe SmartMine brings to the table.
It’s a technology based on an open architec-
ture that provides a platform for a company
to put in place what it needs, and if it’s not
there, we’ll happily interface and develop
that for them,” Bell says. “Let’s face it; a com-
puter can process data more quickly than a
human brain.”
Bell is a staunch advocate for industry
introspection; for mining organizations to
spent time looking at where they are what
they require going forward. “I regularly say
to people that there’s a new challenge every-