Creating a sustainable future together is central to how we collaborate with customers at Komatsu
Helen Gibson
General Manager, Underground Soft Rock, India, Komatsu
How was your overall experience at IMME 2024? Could you share your thoughts on the exhibition in terms of participation, networking opportunities, and visitor engagement?
A little bit wet, thanks to Cyclone Dana (!), but otherwise great in terms of engagement with customers and the industry, we had countless high-quality conversations about upcoming underground projects. IMME 2024 was hosted at a new, slightly smaller venue but it didn’t impact participation - we appreciate everyone who braved the raindrops and made time to visit us.
Which products or solutions did you highlight at the exhibition? What feedback did you receive from potential clients or partners regarding your showcased offerings?
New to our booth this year was our technical training panel which is used to teach engineers (our own and our customers’) to fault-find on our control system in a simulated environment, allowing breakdowns to be resolved quickly, thus minimizing downtime. The training panel is fitted with identical parts from our latest control system (Faceboss 2.0), Intellizone proximity detection and pairs with our newest two-way ‘BPX’ remote. We displayed productivity dashboards (using live data from an underground Continuous Miner), service digitization (using underground approved devices) and our virtual reality operator simulator. Customers have shown significant interest in these globally established, cutting-edge technologies, which are new to the Indian market. Alongside IMME, Michelle Burich (one of our global mining application engineers) spoke at the Global Mining Summit about underground mine optimization. In the panel discussion, Michelle shared her 16+ years of underground experience to highlight the importance of production modelling to shape smarter mining strategies. I also had the great pleasure of being a panellist at the Global Mining Summit in the ‘driving diversity, equity & inclusion in the Indian mining industry’ plenary session. I spoke about our approach in Komatsu, shared my views on the importance of leadership, visibility and networks like Women in Mining India.
What are the latest technological innovations in mining equipment / component / product that your company is focusing on? Could you elaborate on how these innovations align with current industry needs?
We are seeing a trend of customers looking beyond equipment supply and focusing more towards the latest advances in technology to achieve globally-benchmarked production. In our performance zone, we shared how we had helped a customer to achieve a 187% productivity increase through a performance partnership leveraging a blended approach of data, technology, direct service, training and application expertise. We continue to bring the latest advances in safe, smart, sustainable mining to underground customers in India, often at no extra cost. Our equipment is fitted with many globally tried-and-tested ‘smarts’ as standard and, when combined with direct support from our local service team, we are proudly helping our underground customers to be the most productive in India.
How is your company adapting to the increasing emphasis on sustainable mining practices and ESG requirements in your product offerings?
Creating a sustainable future together is central to how we collaborate with customers at Komatsu. Our focus is on long-term partnerships where we can be successful together and it’s not just words: we are proactively sharing global best practices with customers and helping them to plan realistic production targets so that sustainability is in-built at the earliest stage of the project, especially as underground mining conditions become more challenging.
