The surging population, rapidly growing economies and burgeoning global development, particularly in non-OECD areas such as in the Asia-Pacific region, are the main drivers behind an ever increasing consumption of mineral commodities and ore bodies. In order to meet the rampant demand, mining companies the world over are now under heightened pressure to ensure that sufficient supply is in place to satisfy the need.
 
As if that was not tough enough, mining plants and organisations are faced with a number of other challenges, including some of the world’s harshest operating conditions. Indeed, from abrasive dust and dirt, to extremes in temperature, this difficult environment makes it hard, and sometimes even dangerous to maintain equipment, with unplanned downtime and worker injuries posing a constant risk.
 
As a result, many mines often operate below optimum capacity or efficiency, despite the best efforts of plant and production engineers. For example, mine operators will typically run larger vehicle fleets than necessary in the expectation that at least one vehicle will always be out of service for repair or maintenance. The maintenance itself also represents a significant proportion of total costs in the mining sector, with recent market research indicating that this figure could be anywhere in the region from 20 per cent to a massive 50 per cent - the highest ratio of all manufacturing and heavy industries.
 
On the other hand, there are the stringent new regulatory requirements and rising energy, raw material and waste disposal costs that only serve to compound the issue. Consequently, these challenges see many mining plants being forced to drive down energy consumption and emissions in order to remain environmentally responsible and commercially competitive, presenting yet another issue.