Rio Tinto : wins ‘gold medal’ at awards for innovative mine technologies

Rio Tinto's Mine Automation System (MAS) and RTVis™ technologies have been awarded an innovation gold medal by Austmine, Australia's mining equipment, technology and services association.

The 2017 Austmine Miners Innovation Award was presented to Rio Tinto at the Austmine Industry Leaders' Dinner and Awards in Perth on 23 May.

Rio Tinto Growth & Innovation group executive Stephen McIntosh commended the MAS and RTVis™ team on their pioneering achievement.

'The award recognises the power of better use of data which simply but significantly helps us to make more informed decisions in relation to our mining operations.

'It is our aim to support the business in generating US$5 billion of additional free cash flow from productivity gains by 2021. The innovative use of data, technology and automation is integral and this award signals we're on the right track.

'We're now using these technologies at more than 95 per cent of open cut mines across Rio Tinto - making huge contributions to boost productivity and save costs.

'This is an exciting time for Rio Tinto, and to have our peers acknowledge us as the industry leader in mining technology and innovation is absolutely tremendous,' Stephen said.

Ben Rogers, Rio Tinto Mining Innovation and Analytics Delivery manager, who accepted the award on behalf of Rio Tinto, said MAS and RTVis™ involved a range of partnerships.

'This award also recognises the efforts of our network partners, product groups, business units and more than 1,000 end users across Rio Tinto.

'These technologies are the direct result of us partnering with others effectively and our relentless drive to combine operational experience and technical expertise to enhance value together,' Ben said.

Austmine is the leading industry body in Australia for the mining, equipment, technology and services sector and has hosted the awards since 2012.

Pictured: Rio Tinto's Ben Rogers receives the 2017 Austmine Miners Innovation Award

About RTVis™

The Rio Tinto Centre for Mine Automation was established at Sydney University in 2007. One of the major outputs from this collaboration was the Mine Automation System (MAS) and its associated internally developed 3D visualisation tool - RTVis™.

RTVis™ provides a three-dimensional visualisation front-end for MAS and currently assists over 1000 users across Rio Tinto to easily compare and evaluate mine information in real time.

The visualisation technology allows team members based locally or in remote facilities to make faster, more informed decisions based on information from multiple sources - providing a combined view of the powerful data.