Los Bronces is the most important mine in the copper business operated by Anglo American. The new facilities, located in the company's offices in Santiago, will become the brain of the operation, where the integration of all digitization and remote control technology projects will take place.
Anglo American took another step towards the mining of the future with the inauguration of its first Integrated Remote Operation Center (IROC) worldwide, which will allow Los Bronces mine to be controlled in real time and in an integrated manner from Santiago, the Chilean capital.
The new facilities, located in the company's offices in Las Condes municipality, will become the brain of the operation, where the integration of all digitization and remote control technology projects will take place.
The future of Mining in Chile
The inauguration was virtually led by the Mining and Energy minister, Juan Carlos Jobet; and by the executive president of Anglo American in Chile, Aaron Puna, from IROC. They were joined by the national director of Sernageomin, Alfonso Domeyko, and the general manager of Los Bronces, Patricio Chacana, as well as workers, supervisors and executives of the company.
“This is an example of the mining of the future; from mining which is making a huge contribution to life in general; that is generating enormous transformations; that is advancing in the incorporation of clean energy, desalinated water and technology, but at the same time that it thinks about the safety and quality of life of its workers, who stop moving to tasks that can now be monitored remotely ", said the Mining and Energy minister.
He added that “we need our mining to be safe, competitive and sustainable, and the inauguration of the IROC is an example of that. I am sure that an Integrated Operations Center like this will allow the company to make more efficient use of resources”.
The IROC will operate from the 48th floor of the Titanium Tower, incorporating artificial intelligence technologies and work routines that will allow integration and the search for a global optimum through a digital model of the mine, with which compliance of the mine plan can be monitored.
Los Bronces, the most important copper mine of Anglo American
In addition, the processes of geomechanics, drilling, loading and transportation, mine services, crushing, grinding, flotation, pulp transportation system, cathode plant; and it will include support areas for the operation, such as maintenance through the monitoring of conditions of mine and plant equipment, logistics of supplies and products, mine planning equipment and metallurgy, which seek the optimization of the production chain.
“At Anglo American we are putting innovation at the center of everything we do. It is the first Integrated Remote Operation Center that Anglo American has set up in the world, and it has decided to do it in Chile, in the most important mine in the copper business operated by the company, so we are very proud," explained Aaron Puna.
He added that "this project is part of our approach FutureSmart Mining TM, seeking new ways of doing mining, technology, digitization and sustainability go hand in hand. So we continue to re-imagine mining to improve people lives, in this case, our workers and their families, who will see a substantial improvement in their quality of life," explained Aaron Puna.
At IROC, around 100 people will perform their duties in a shift system. More than 80% are operators who previously had to go to work and who from now on will work just as connected to the operation, but from Santiago, reduceng travel times and exposure to the natural and extreme conditions of Los Bronces.
The space, which is the digital brain of the copper mine, has 32 workstations that receive the information from the site, where more than 700 cameras are installed that capture the different processes that the mine has to extract and process the minerals. These images and the information obtained are transmitted through fiber optic connections to maintain communication security, to the remote office where they are distributed over 150 state-of-the-art screens, a videowall with 50 servers, and different computer systems that serve to analyze data and processes.
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