Integrated digital transformation implemented in development of the Gremyachinskoe potassium-magnesium salt deposit

Abstract

The paper reviews the main trends in digitalization of the production processes implemented during the development of the Gremyachinskoe potassium-magnesium salt deposit. The main objective of the digital projects is to maintain competitiveness in the current market conditions. When implementing the integrated digital transformation project, the EuroChem-VolgaKaliy created a clear system of criteria to control the efficiency of the business processes and intriduced instrumental control over the actual duration of the technological cycle. Comparing more complete information on personnel with production metrics data creates objective ratings of face teams and foremen, which makes it possible to reduce production cycle time and increase average daily production volumes by 26%. An important area for further implementation of the project will be upgrading the IT-infrastructure, robotization of the office tasks, e.g. automatic generation of production requests, transfer of messages between the related divisions with no manual entry of information. After the information array is formed, it is planned to introduce the dependency analysis of production indicators with definition of equipment breakdown parameters. This will help to reduce the total number of downtime cases and increase the productivity of the mine as a whole, and will ensure a significant reduction in duration of unscheduled emergency repairs. A promising trend in activities of the Gremyachinskoe mining-and-processing integrated works is application of artificial intelligence in planning of mining operations. In order to solve these tasks it is envisaged to create 3D models, to simulate various methods and technologies of mining salt formations, to determine the design parameters of the mining method with account of the actual morphology and thixotropy of the formations.