SOLID AS A ROCK

David Hallett has visited too many mines to remember – his best guess is “over a hundred at this point.” His first assignment as a field service technician was to repair machines at a tunneling project under-neath Manhattan in New York City.

– As I had studied mechanical engineering, I never thought I would find myself in mining like my other family members. My grandfather worked for Cat for almost 40 years, my father worked for Tamrock for nearly 30 years, and he is still working for a Finnish company in the mining industry. The most important advice they have passed down to me is staying humble, working hard, and doing your best to understand all aspects of the business, Hallett says.

Hallett certainly has taken this advice to heart. During his years at Sandvik, he has accrued experience, for example, as a technical specialist, service super-visor, business line manager, and vice president, automation.

– I have gotten my hands dirty and worked my way through the organization, and I think it’s been beneficial.

– Sandvik is a dynamic organization, and there is never a lack of opportunity here. I am a good example of that.

Now, Hallett is in charge of automation globally at Sandvik.

– As the mining industry continues to evolve, digital technologies, automation, and electrification are the key topics that really are going to find a critical role in the overall digital shift within the industry.

CONTINUOUSLY DEVELOPING  AUTOMINE®

Sandvik AutoMine® is a product group for autonomous and remotely operated mobile equipment. It includes AutoMine® Underground and AutoMine® Surface Drilling products, continuously increasing with intelligent functionalities and support for different types of machinery. The AutoMine®product group allows customers to scale up automation at their own pace

Sandvik introduced the AutoMine® products in 2004.

– What we have today versus what we started with is night and day. We have an excellent research and development team that really enjoys and loves developing these cutting-edge technologies. The great network in our sales areas goes and deploys these solutions at our customer’s sites and live and breathes the day to day with the operations where the end-users derive the value from the products into their operations.

“Mining is a necessary piece of our world nowadays. We need the minerals to have devices and products we are used to, but we also need to collect the mineral responsibly.“

COMMITTED TO REDUCING EMISSIONS

Sandvik is committed to using engineering and innovation to make the shift towards a more sustainable business.

– Mining is a necessary piece of our world nowadays. We need the minerals to have devices and products we are used to, but we also need to collect the mineral responsibly. All the customers I talk to agree with this.

Examples of how Sandvik can help mining sites to reduce emissions include battery electric vehicles, remote connections that reduce the need for fly-in-fly-out operations, and automation that reduces excessive travel to and from the remote mining sites.

TOGETHER AS A TEAM

Sandvik Mining and Rock Solutions and Arnon have a long history together. Arnon supplies mining automation systems and oversees their assembly, manufacturing, and distribution.

– The flexibility of the business model with Arnon has been quite good for us. It has given us the ability to work together with a partner we trust and with whom we can scale up our business together as a team, Hallett says.