The challenges facing the mining industry—from resource allocation and procurement to workforce planning and maintenance reliability—require innovative, data-driven approaches.
Unison Mining’s suite of digital solutions is at the forefront of this shift, offering tools that eliminate guesswork and streamline the thousands of decisions that supervisors and mine planners must make daily. Below, we explore five exciting solutions Unison Mining has developed that are transforming mining operations for our clients and delivering measurable benefits.
Address Mining Challenges with Data-Driven Insights and Tools
Real-Time Interval Control Tool
Client Challenge: How can we control and understand our productivity and gain hourly insights into deviations, so we can improve?
Benefit Delivery: Unison’s Real-Time Interval Control Tool provides hourly data on equipment productivity, tons hauled, and shift performance. By comparing real-time data to set targets and calculating deviations, this tool empowers supervisors to pinpoint inefficiencies and take immediate corrective action. The result is enhanced productivity and better alignment with operational goals.
Wrench Time Optimization Tool
Client Challenge: How can I improve operational efficiency and minimize downtime while optimizing resource allocation and communication?
Benefit Delivery: Efficiently tracking tasks, enabling rapid issue resolution, optimizing skill utilization, and logging delays are at the core of this tool’s functionality. By improving task coordination and managing spare parts effectively, the Wrench Time Optimization Tool helps reduce downtime and ensures that critical tasks are completed on time.
Spend Cube Analysis Tool
Client Challenge: How do we mitigate supply chain risks and ensure that critical parts are available to minimize shutdowns?
Benefit Delivery: The Spend Cube Analysis Tool consolidates procurement data, tracking spend (price/ton), inventory, and supplier relationships. This single, unified view of procurement activities enables mining companies to optimize resource management, reduce supply chain vulnerabilities, and maintain seamless operations.
Maintenance Reliability & Operational Readiness Pyramid
Client Challenge: How do we structure our readiness to minimize downtime, extend asset life, and maximize overall asset value?
Benefit Delivery: Built on broad industry experience, Unison Mining’s pyramid model aligns maintenance reliability with operational readiness. This alignment helps extend the lifecycle of key assets, reduce unexpected breakdowns, and enhance the overall reliability of mining equipment—factors that are essential for long-term success.
Workforce Planning (UG & OG) and Simulation
Client Challenge: How can we best plan our workforce to execute our strategy at minimum cost while aligning with daily operations?
Benefit Delivery: Unison’s workforce planning tools leverage simulation to right-size the workforce for both strategic and operational needs. By running multiple “what-if” scenarios, clients can identify the impact of key variables and optimize workforce allocation to reduce costs while maintaining operational effectiveness.
Enhance data utilization to tackle mining challenges
In addition to these tools, Unison’s simulation technology integrates first-principles physics models (e.g., rock mechanics, hydrodynamics) with AI/ML-based predictive analytics to enhance reliability. By using digital twins that connect with live data streams, mining companies can achieve real-time calibration and continuously improve their operations.
This approach is further strengthened by strategic stockpile management—optimizing ore blending for consistent feed quality, aligning supplier incentives through performance-based contracts, and minimizing inventory costs via lean logistics.
Additionally, dynamic planning also plays a critical role, enabling agile adjustments through rolling 3-month and 12-month mine plans, Monte Carlo simulations to stress-test financial scenarios, and real-time fleet deployment tweaks to optimize cost-per-ton. Together, these solutions empower mines to balance short-term efficiency with long-term resilience, ensuring operations remain adaptable to market shifts and geological uncertainties.
