GOLD INDUSTRY GROUP

SETTING THE GOLD STANDARD

PERTH MINT ACTING CHIEF EXECUTIVE OFFICER JANE KING, THE FIRST FEMALE CEO IN THE COMPANY’S 123 YEARS OF OPERATION, DISCUSSES HER FOCUS ON WELLBEING, SUSTAINABILITY, DIVERSITY AND INCLUSION.

It has been a busy past 12 months for the Perth Mint and the gold industry.

The Gold Industry Group member company announced record silver sales for January, selling 2,387,165 ounces of silver in minted product form.

Last year the organisation also saw the gold price record its first calendar year decline since 2018, falling 4 per cent to end the year at $US1820 ($2500) per ounce of gold.

However, it noted that most of the decline in 2021 was seen during the first quarter, with improvement enjoyed since.

The Perth Mint also welcomed its first female chief executive officer in the company’s 123 years of operation.

Acting chief executive officer Jane King said she had been with the Perth Mint for more than seven years.

“Initially, I thought I would be here for 18 months to two years, but I have found it to be a fascinating business that presents one professional challenge after another,” King said.

“I am still excited by the Perth Mint and want to be part of its success.

“As acting CEO my focus is to keep the business running while seeing the business and our people through this difficult COVID period.

“Our priority is to protect our staff from the spread of COVID. Equally so, if that did happen we have plans in place so that we can keep serving the mining community as we provide an essential service to their businesses.”

King has a background in customer service, but also spent a short time with Rio Tinto in Dampier at the port in WA, as well as two years as an HR superintendent on-site at Fortescue Metals Group’s Cloudbreak.

“In addition to learning some pretty colourful language, understanding provisions for the life of mine was really rewarding,” King said.

“Everything that we touched had to go back to how it was before, so I like the respect for the land that we were mining.

“Once the mining aspect was removed from the pit we were backfilling and putting it back to how it was. The site also held a lot of respect for the First Nations people. Although I have a Masters in Employment Relations – Safety, HR and IR, working on a big mine site really honed my safety focus.”

King said one of her key priorities in the role was keeping people physically and mentally safe, especially amid the COVID pandemic.

“I am cognisant of people’s mental wellbeing throughout this process and different people handle situations differently,” she said.

“Encouraging our leaders to be understanding and put strategies in place for people who are struggling or living alone (is important), supporting them to continue living their lives as normally as possible as we deal with COVID.”

King said the Perth Mint offered women equal opportunities.

The company also has a program to educate its people on cultural awareness and have included First Nations people’s stories in its exhibition tour.

“In the tour, we talk about how Aboriginal families helped the gold industry get started,” King said.

“We’re also committed to expanding our supply chain to use more Indigenous businesses and work with groups like the Waalitj Foundation to encourage candidates to apply for positions across our business.”

“Our business is enormously diverse. You walk through the different parts of the business and you see people from around the world.

“With our heritage buildings, we have some challenges around access, but that said we have a lot of people who have declared a disability and we have made modifications to buildings that we can within heritage guidelines.”

King said that over the next oneto-five years she would like tourism to return to the visitor levels that the Perth Mint enjoyed before COVID, with more people from all over the world coming to enjoy its building and showcase its products.

“I would like our coin programs to continue to be of interest and the innovation that is shown in there continue so more and more people collect gold and silver pieces,” she said.

“I would like visitors to feel safe and comfortable coming here and visitors and customers understand that we are a sustainable business.

“I would also like our mining clients to still feel that they get good value and that we are conducting a business that has an eye on the future.” AM

PERTH MINT ACTING CHIEF EXECUTIVE OFFICER JANE KING.

THE PRICE OF GOLD HAS HAD A TUMULTUOUS 12 MONTHS.

SMARTER, SAFER AI-DRIVEN MINING FLEETS

THE DEPLOYMENT OF ADVANCED DATA ANALYTICS, ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE AND INCREASED CONNECTIVITY THROUGH THE INTERNET OF THINGS ARE KEY DRIVERS OF THE DIGITAL REVOLUTION IN THE MINING SECTOR. ONE AREA WHERE MACHINE LEARNING CAN PLAY A BIG ROLE IS FLEET MANAGEMENT.

AI ENABLES DEEPER ANALYSIS OF FLEET OPERATIONS AS WELL AS MORE ACCURATE AND SPECIFIC PREDICTIONS IN MINING OPERATIONS.

The Australian mining industry has one of the highest fatality and injury rates of any industry. A combined total of 2808 working days per year are lost due to injuries alone.

This makes it easy to see why mining companies have a lot to gain from advanced technology and why rates of adoption continue to grow.

There’s an urgency to ensure minesite safety and maintain regulatory compliance, which has resulted in a need for mining companies to become more proactive in managing daily operations to mitigate risk.

Why AI is the future of fleet management Artificial intelligence (AI) can allow for a deeper analysis of fleet operations, as well as more accurate and specific predictions than have ever been seen.

Thanks to AI, mining fleets can improve the accuracy of telematicsderived data related to driver behaviour, asset-tracking, fleet utilisation and overall operations which, in turn, can improve site safety, driver safety, productivity and cost-efficiency. Automated decision-making AI-driven automated decision-making is also becoming more common when it comes to fleet maintenance issues.

Many fleets today practice preventive maintenance; for example, sending a notification or alert every 10,000 kilometres to change the vehicle oil to prevent future engine problems.

By analysing engine data, fleets can get more precise and predictive than ever before.

Not every vehicle needs its oil changed at 10,000 kilometres – where, how and how frequently depends on factors like the way a vehicle is driven and the condition of the oil.

Telematics data that is pulled from the engine and analysed can give a more precise picture and enable fleets to predict exactly when maintenance is needed to suit a particular circumstance.

Users can see how such a process would lead to better efficiency, greater uptime and increased productivity. Preventive fleet maintenance is where AI can really shine.

Making fleets safer The use of facial recognition is another feature of AI that could contribute to making mine fleets safer.

In-cab cameras are a big growth area in telematics. According to Berg Insight, the market for video telematics will grow by 22.2 per cent between 2020 and 2025, to a total of 3.2 million subscribers.

Video telematics can reduce collisions by 60 per cent and the related costs by 75 per cent. Visual evidence collected by in-cab cameras is a powerful tool for insurance claims and driver safety training.

What’s more, video telematics is increasingly being used in combination with AI technology to help provide visual context.

This helps to determine the circumstances around specific events such as on-site crashes. AI-powered video eliminates the need for the time-consuming task of sifting through hours of footage to find the precise moment or event a fleet manager needs to review, and makes any video snippet available in near real-time.

The technology has garnered a significant reputation for its ability to increase safety and efficiency within fleets of all kinds, making AI ideal for the mining industry.

In-cab cameras can also provide important proactive safety benefits. For example, some models can detect a driver falling asleep while driving or an imminent crash, triggering audible in-cab warnings to help prevent a crash from occurring.

AI-powered machine vision technology can also be used to streamline driver ID and security processes.

For instance, you could use facial recognition to unlock or start vehicles (to prevent, say, unauthorised usage), or enable auto-login to your telematics system.

Challenges that AI-powered video can help mining operators to solve The benefits of using AI-powered technology can include (but are not limited to): • reduction in speeding through increased awareness of road safety behaviours • identifying at-risk drivers and taking relevant actions to assist them • locating drivers at all times • providing direct real-time feedback on road conditions to operators and their control centres • reducing fuel usage, thus lessening environmental impact. Using AI alongside video telematics can help manage driver distraction, fatigue and other potential safety threats in real-time to prevent potential crashes and the resultant injuries.

Safety incidents can be significantly reduced through the identification and monitoring of high-risk drivers, locations, times and shifts.

In turn, action plans can be implemented to train drivers on how to avoid safety hazards, allowing for improvement to take place on a continuous basis for long-term results.

The more data you have, the smarter you can be about making decisions that improve performance, efficiency and most of all safety.

Generating actionable insights will be the key to success in this brave new world of AI-enabled fleet management. AM