Mine Closures – Past, Present and Future…

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Created: Thursday, 24 April 2025 05:42

Written by J. Lake

The mining industry is an exciting space, where the convergence of environmental stewardship, socio-economic responsibility, and technological innovation is reshaping the way we approach mine closure. As we navigate this complex landscape, the importance of mine closure planning is becoming more and more pronounced.

Effective mine closure begins long before the end of operations, with proactive strategies that anticipate challenges and opportunities. By embedding closure planning into the broader mine lifecycle, companies can ensure smoother transitions and more sustainable outcomes.
One of the most pressing challenges faced by the South African mining industry is the uncertainty surrounding legislation and regulatory frameworks. As governments and international bodies continue to refine their policies to address environmental and social concerns, mining companies must remain agile and proactive in their approach to compliance.

Innovation and technological advances are transforming the way we approach mine closure. From predictive modelling to advanced reclamation techniques, the integration of technologies is enabling more efficient, sustainable, and cost-effective closure solutions.

The socio-economic transition associated with mine closure is another critical focus area. As mines cease operations, the surrounding communities often face significant economic and social changes. Mines need to develop strategies for fostering resilience and sustainability in these communities, emphasising the importance of collaboration between industry, government, and local stakeholders.

The complexity of disciplines required to develop effective mine closure plans cannot be overstated. Geotechnical engineering, hydrogeology, environmental science, socio-economic planning and more, must converge to create holistic solutions.

This journal serves as a platform to explore the multifaceted challenges and opportunities inherent in mine closure, offering insights into the evolving practices and strategies that define this inevitable and critical phase of the mining lifecycle.

As you explore the articles and case studies within this journal, we invite you to reflect on the shared responsibility we have in shaping the future of mine closure. Together, through innovation, collaboration, and foresight we can navigate the complexities of this critical phase and contribute to a more sustainable and equitable mining industry.

J. Lake

Past, Present and Future Insights to be shared

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Created: Thursday, 03 April 2025 05:32

Written by G.R. Lane

As the incoming President of SAIMM, I have been reflecting on my 34-year career in the mining industry and the lessons I have learned; lessons I can leverage to lead SAIMM and support the industry during my tenure. Writing this month’s journal comment provides an opportunity to share part one of some of these insights.

Each role, as well as the individuals and teams I have worked with throughout my career, have shaped and expanded my experience and perspectives on how to make a difference and add value.

I began my journey as a young engineer, developing and commissioning new mining operations in Africa for a multinational mining house. Later, I pivoted to mine optimisation modelling and software development, aiming to transform mine planning as the co-founder of multiple startup businesses.

This experience reinforced my understanding of the technical and safety challenges in the mining industry, the inherent risks and variability in ore body characteristics, and the complexities of managing a dynamic, interconnected value stream of activities to mine and process ore. Additionally, a lack of management focus, caused by an overwhelming number of improvement projects and initiatives that are often poorly implemented, means that many of these efforts fail to add value.

Later in my career, after being exposed to the tools of Lean Six Sigma and the Theory of Constraints, I learned that using the right decision-making tools enables management to focus on the right leading indicators that add value. However, it would be remiss of me not to mention that none of these methodologies alone adequately address the challenges in mining. In fact, some principles of Lean can limit performance due to the inherent variability in ore and processing.

The mining industry also faces significant challenges in implementing new technology. We often underestimate the people-related challenges involved and fail to effectively design and manage the necessary changes in work processes, roles, and employee buy-in. The promises of Big Data and Industry 4.0 (IR4) are recent examples of this. In my opinion, current change management thinking and execution is not adequate for our rapidly changing future business landscape.
A common phrase I have heard over the years is: ‘Our mine is unique and more challenging, so what worked at mine XYZ won’t work here’.

To determine whether we can learn from other industries, I explored insights from the automotive sector, particularly Toyota’s leadership in systems thinking, which leverages Lean Six Sigma and a people-centric approach. The automotive industry has seen massive productivity increases over the past decade, whereas the mining industry has experienced a decline over the same period. A recording of my keynote address, ‘Has Technology Generated ROI?’, from the 2015 International MPES Conference, is available on YouTube, where I discuss these insights further.

Over the past eight years, in a new business venture, I have been able to test and refine these hypotheses across multiple industries worldwide. Whether in chocolate or biscuit manufacturing, a tissue paper mill and converting line, the production of lab-grown diamonds, product lifecycle management for high-tech equipment R&D and manufacturing, or ore moving through a value stream, the challenges remain the same. Each industry has its own technical requirements, whether in chemical engineering, metallurgy, or mining engineering, but the fundamental challenge of managing and maximizing the flow of material through a complex system of interconnected activities, as well as the impact of performance variability on this flow, is identical across industries.

What was even more revealing was that these challenges persist regardless of technological sophistication. Whether in a greenfield digital manufacturing facility equipped with expert control and real-time data reporting in dedicated operating centres or a brownfield operation reliant on paper and Excel spreadsheets for data collation and reporting, the same issues exist. In fact, we found that, in many instances, more real-time data creates more noise, uncertainty, and reactive responses to variance, leading to a further dilution of management focus – leadership time in a day is also a constraint. In many cases, general managers of production facilities spend over 75% of their time explaining yesterday’s poor performance.

In every example, production success is driven by individual effort; people working hard across all engineering disciplines and business functions, often relying on a handful of ‘heroes’ to achieve equipment reliability and production targets. One clear symptom of this is the excessive number of meetings employees at all levels attend weekly; meetings that serve no clear purpose and produce no agreed upon outcomes.

With all the technological advances in the world, we have neglected to focus on the people within this increasingly complex business system. The advent of artificial intelligence will also have a profound impact and must be designed into the future operating model.
In my next journal comment I will begin to unpack the learnings and requirements of an integrated operating model that addresses these challenges.

G.R. Lane

To act or not act (timeously), that is the question for the future

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Created: Wednesday, 05 March 2025 08:00

Written by A. Nengovhela

Mining has always been about more than just extracting minerals from the earth. It is about securing the future, balancing economic imperatives with environmental responsibility, technological innovation, and the well-being of those who power this industry. As we move forward, we must ask ourselves: are we truly mining with the future in mind?

The challenge of resource scarcity is real, and it is reshaping how we think about mining. The days of endless reserves are behind us, and the industry must shift from a model of extraction and export to one that embraces beneficiation, circularity, and long-term resource stewardship. The push towards a circular economy is no longer a theoretical discussion, it is a business imperative. If we fail to maximise the value of our minerals beyond extraction, we risk losing economic opportunities that could drive sustainable development across the continent.

Operational excellence remains key. New technologies are transforming mining, allowing us to extract resources with greater efficiency while reducing waste and energy consumption. But efficiency cannot come at the cost of health and safety. The risks of occupational diseases, particularly in underground mining, are well known, yet we often move too slowly in addressing them. Have we learned enough from past health crises, or are we waiting for another preventable tragedy before we take decisive action? Mining cannot afford to be reactive, it must be proactive in protecting its workforce.

The environment is another frontier where mining must do better. The industry is under greater scrutiny than ever, with water use, emissions, and rehabilitation practices facing intense public and regulatory pressure. Companies that do not prioritise sustainability will find themselves struggling to maintain their license to operate. Those that embrace environmental responsibility as a core business principle will be the ones that thrive in the years ahead.

Mining has the potential to be a driver of economic and social progress, but only if we rise to meet the challenges before us. The research in this edition highlights both the risks and the opportunities that lie ahead. It reminds us that the choices we make today will define the legacy of our industry. Will we be remembered as the generation that mined responsibly, using innovation and sustainability to build a lasting future? That is the challenge and the opportunity before us.

A. Nengovhela

Seismic activity related to mining

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Created: Wednesday, 12 February 2025 08:23

Written by R.J. Durrheim

This issue focuses on mine seismology, a discipline that has its roots in the South African mining industry. Gold was discovered near present-day Johannesburg in 1886. Mining related seismicity was first encountered in the early 1900s, when extensive stopes, supported solely by small reef pillars, reached depths of several hundred metres. In 1908, -the Government Mining Engineer appointed a committee to “inquire into and report on the origin and effect of the earth tremors experienced in the village of Ophirton” (Report of the 1908 Ophirton Earth Tremors Committee, Witwatersrand Earth Tremors Committee, 1915). The committee concluded that “… under the great weight of the superincumbent mass of rock [...] the pillars are severely strained; that ultimately they partly give way suddenly, and that this relief of strain produces a vibration in the rock which is transmitted to the surface in the form of a more or less severe tremor or shock.” Since then, strenuous efforts have been made to understand the phenomenon of mining induced seismicity, and to mitigate the harm that it causes through damage to mine workings and surface infrastructure, loss of production, and injury to mine workers and the public.

In recent decades, the South African mining industry has made great strides in improving safety. Every death is a tragedy. Nevertheless, we are encouraged that 2022 is the safest year on record, with 49 deaths, compared to a toll of 484 in 1994, with a similar workforce of about 500,000. Provisional figures published by the Ministry of Mineral and Petroleum Resources suggest that 2024 might be even safer. Up until 9 December 2024, 41 lives had been lost and 1746 reportable injuries had occurred, of which 12 of the deaths (29%) and 253 of the injuries (15%) were ‘rock-related’ (i.e. attributed to falls of ground and rockbursts). The rockburst risk has been reduced but not eliminated, requiring further research and better implementation of knowledge and technology. As shallow ore bodies are depleted, the depth of mining is likely to increase and it will become even more important to reduce the risk of rockbursting by managing mining-induced stresses, reinforcing excavations with robust energy-absorbing support elements and systems, and reducing the exposure of mineworkers to hazardous conditions through mechanization and automation.

Not all seismicity related to mining is bad. For example, there are techniques to destress the rock mass and reduce the likelihood of damaging events by releasing stored seismic energy at times and in places where it does not pose a risk. Furthermore, there are mining methods that depend on stress-induced fracturing to break the rock. Here it is important to monitor the progression of the cave front. Seismic energy can also be used to image the rock mass and detect new ore bodies, map extensions to existing ore bodies, and detect structures that might be seismogenic and pose risks, such as faults and dykes. Lastly, deep South African gold mines have provided the stage for pioneering scientific investigations of the physics of earthquakes, the nature of neutrinos, the characteristics of ‘extremophile’ organisms (which could be prototypes of extraterrestrial life), and even the origin of the magnetic field of the Earth and Sun.

The development of knowledge and skill in the field of mine seismology is vital for the wellbeing of the South African mining industry. The papers in this special issue record current efforts by industry practitioners and researchers to ensure that our mines remain efficient while we strive for zero harm.

R.J. Durrheim

Developing social capital to enhance mining community relations

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Created: Wednesday, 11 December 2024 06:30

Written by D. Morris

One of the more difficult challenges facing mining companies is the complex issue of local community engagement and partnership. Often large amounts of financial capital are invested in social projects with outcomes, which can be, to say the least, disappointing and unsustainable. On occasion the expenditure of resources and effort can result in community fragmentation, which compounds the problem. Low levels of trust, and fractious and failed relationships often characterize the interaction between the mine and surrounding community.

Mining companies and business in general understand well the deployment of natural, economic, and human capital in the pursuit of their objectives, and performance is often assessed against the effective and efficient use of these three capitals. However, a fourth type of capital, that is social capital, can be neglected and not seen as an important business imperative through the lack of understanding of its value and a natural discomfort with the work that is needed to develop it.

Social capital is developed through the interactions between people whose lives intersect within and outside a business or community. These interactions foster relationships, shared norms, values, and understandings that collectively shape behaviour, actions, and outcomes. Factors such as trust, belonging, social identity, sense of self, networks, confidence, and community self-reliance all form part of the multi-dimensional nature of social capital. In a setting where social capital has been consciously developed there is a lower probability of friction and discontent and a higher probability of constructive, prosperous co-operation. In the context of a mining community, investing in the growth of social capital in an organized and structured way can lead to resilient, long-term trusting relationships, greater self-reliance, reduced dependencies, and a more effective use of other forms of capital, resulting in improved business and societal outcomes. The development of social capital is a long-term programme, which requires sustained effort and commitment, and a constancy of vision and leadership, which understands that social capital is a valuable and essential part of the business effort and not an elective or discretionary element. The work can be viewed as disquieting, uncomfortable, and traditionally ‘non-core’ and thus requires senior leaders to take a bold step out of their familiar environment, adapt new leadership styles and make a personal commitment towards civic and community engagement. Leaders who are transparent, reliable, and empathetic will excel at growing their organization’s social capital.

From small initial efforts, social capital can grow exponentially and deliver impact beyond original expectations. Such a programme could be focused on work in one of the critical needs of the community such as education, health services or security, where in-principle common ground is easily found. Practical and tested programmes of this nature exist, which with the support of expert knowledge and facilitation are easy to implement provided that the commitment exists. A particularly successful initiative partners key community members—in this case, school principals—with senior leaders and decision-makers from the business sector (the mine). Through a professionally coached and structured journey that builds social capital, these partnerships create meaningful impact, benefiting the individuals involved and fostering innovative leadership skills. The work enhances the school principals’ ability to find their own solutions to their unique challenges, through the growth of their personal social capital, resulting in, among other things, collateral benefit to school performance and a positive impact on the wider community. The business leaders develop an awareness and understanding of the social complexity of the community, learn new transformational leadership skills in situations where they lack expertise or authority, and gain exposure to and insight of a sector of society they would not normally interact with.

Most importantly, this work fosters close, trusting, and lasting personal relationships between key individuals who develop shared values and beliefs, leading to a stronger connection between the business and the community. This connection creates a tangible shift in both perceived and actual power dynamics and lowers barriers towards generating the common goal of mutual prosperity. These types of programmes generate agency, growth of confidence and independence, and a reduced sense of isolation and hopelessness in difficult circumstances, all of which contribute towards better mutual socio-economic outcomes.

The conscious and deliberate development of social capital is a valuable tool, which should warrant more formal consideration in the social and community programmes of mining companies.

D. Morris

The Sustainability of Mining Engineering Education in South Africa

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Created: Thursday, 28 November 2024 07:49

Written by D.F. Malan

The mining engineering departments at the various South African tertiary institutes are responsible for producing the next generation of tech-savvy mining engineers. It is well known that it is an ongoing battle for these departments to attract top students. The problem is not unique to South Africa, however. Mining Digital reported earlier this year that mining is no longer seen as a popular career choice and enrolment in mining engineering courses decreased by 63% in Australia since 2014. The Mining Industry Human Resources Council of Canada found in a survey that 70% of the younger generation said they would not consider a career in mining and this was the highest proportion of all the industries included in the survey. This problem is even more complex in South Africa and addressing it will require a multi-pronged approach.

A major difficulty is that the basic education system is not training enough students in the science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) subjects. Numbers presented to parliament’s Portfolio Committee on Basic Education revealed that enrolment for STEM subjects decreased substantially from 2016 to 2020. During this period, mathematics decreased by 40 385, physical sciences decreased by 18 461 and life sciences decreased by 21 940. It is alarming that the various medical, computer science, engineering and pure science faculties at the tertiary institutes now compete to attract the best from this shrinking pool of STEM matriculants. Mining departments typically fall last in line as the best talent is grabbed by the offerings perceived to be more glamorous by the students. Although exceedingly difficult to implement, STEM subjects should assume a central role in the nation’s public and private education system. Diane Sengati from the African Institute of Mathematical Science (AIMS) noted “Most students don’t pursue STEM subjects because they think it is very difficult, but the perceived difficulties root from how they have been taught those subjects. If you teach the subject in a friendlier way, it becomes easier and attracts more students”. Training the teachers is therefore an important initiative for AIMS and it should be aggressively pursued by the government. James Lees of the Mail & Guardian wrote that the number of schools not offering science subjects increased from 512 in 2013 to 781 in 2021. This trend must be reversed to increase the pool of young talent.

The mining industry can also assist in making mining studies a more attractive option for students. This includes advocating for mining education and the marketing of its importance in schools and universities. Mining can improve its image and make itself a more desirable choice for students by focusing on the adoption of advanced mining equipment and technologies. Of concern is that the number of bursaries awarded by some mining groups has decreased in recent years. Approximately only 30% of the final year class at our university is currently studying with a bursary and this trend must be reversed.

The third aspect affecting the sustainability of mining departments is the sourcing of skilled staff. The requirements to fill lecturing positions at the universities are perhaps unnecessarily strict, and typically a PhD degree is a minimum requirement for a senior lecturer position. Sourcing mining graduates with a PhD, some teaching experience and a good publications record is exceedingly difficult. Finding a suitable professor candidate is the proverbial hen’s teeth. The universities need to be more innovative in this regard and career paths need to be more flexible. The development of younger staff into these roles is becoming more important. Industry can play a supportive role and aspects, such as secondments to industry for practical experience, can be of great assistance. Appointment of senior industry staff in part-time ‘extraordinary’ lecturer and professor positions has also been successfully used in the past and this should be supported by both industry and the tertiary institutes.

D.F. Malan

Special Edition of the Southern African Rare Earths Conference 2024

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Created: Wednesday, 06 November 2024 06:46

Written by E. Matinde

Rare earths elements (REE), often dubbed the ‘vitamins driving the 21st century industrial epoch and clean energy transitions’, have been a subject of debate and are at the centre of the geopolitical and supply-side tensions between China and the West. With everyone scrambling for de-risk of their supply chains, the attention is now increasingly being focused on seeking alternative sources of these critical raw materials. This is where Southern Africa, as a geopolitically neutral region rich in these irreplaceable raw materials, comes in to ensure the sustainable supply of the critical raw materials needed to drive the clean energy transition.

Although the Institute is historically known for its acumen for organizing thought provoking and interesting conferences, nothing would have prepared any reader for the perfect timing to release the special October edition. The special edition of the Journal is unique in that it showcases the Institute’s contribution to the global conundrum on the debate about these critical and strategic raw materials. This special edition contains seven papers that were selected from the 2nd International Conference on Southern African Rare Earths 2024 held in Swakopmund, Namibia. With the theme ‘Global Impact and Sustainable Supply’, the conference focused on fostering dialogue, leveraging on global diversity and innovation in the rare earths sector. The selected papers enhance an understanding of the occurrence and extraction of these vital elements from both conventional, and non-conventional resources, ranging from exploration and geology, characterization and concentration, right up to leaching behaviour, extraction, and recovery from solutions. The diverse nature and scope of the topical issues discussed in the papers included in this special edition highlights both the challenges and opportunities in harnessing the feasibility and economies of scale associated with the recovery of REEs from such complex, and low-grade resources.

E. Matinde
President, SAIMM

Is industry hiding its light under the proverbial bushel?

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Created: Wednesday, 16 October 2024 06:00

Written by R.M.S. Falcon

The SAIMM’s 2024 Annual General Meeting held in August 2024 celebrated the Institute’s 130th birthday and 70 years since the Journal was first published. This celebration comes at a time when the mining industry is facing challenges with regard to future funding and limited opportunities for new developments largely due to environmental lobbying and soaring financial costs.

It is in this context that this Institute has an important role to play. Following on from the Commentary penned by Prof Dick Stacey in the August 2024 edition of this Journal, it is now my pleasure to reverberate the relevance of the Institute as the collective intellectual face of the mining and metallurgical industries and to emphasize the important functions the Institute performs for these industries. Namely, the Institute provides an essential gathering point around which the academic and industrial communities network, share common interests, promote common goals towards advanced knowledge, develop technical professionalism and ensure industry-wide practices with regard to safety, health and environmental matters. The sharing of such goals can only be met through the hosting of networking opportunities which serve to centralize the mechanisms for activities of common interest.

The critical functions that the Institute provides include the hosting of conferences and related events in a wide range of topics, and the production of the Journal – an internationally accredited publication which presents papers highlighting the latest technical advancements of the day, both in southern Africa and globally. It also summarizes past and current advancements by way of valuable and extensive reviews.

Linked to these functions is the fact that the Institute serves two realms of the mining and metallurgical fraternity – industry and academia. Both attend conferences and related events, but generally only those in academia tend to contribute papers to the Journal. Understandably, those active in industry have little time or incentive to spend on non-practical or non-commercial activities, whereas academicians are rewarded well for their efforts in sharing knowledge to as wide a community as possible through an accredited publication.

As Prof Dick Stacey once quoted, “in the mining and metallurgical industries there are regular examples of significant achievements whereby problems have been solved. Publication of the basis of these achievements, and the causes of the problems, could be of considerable value to other companies in the broader mining sphere”. On this basis, Stacey calls for more contributions from the industrial sector.

I too hope that those in industry, namely those at the ‘coal face’, will consider increasing their paper contributions by publishing results of relevant, unusual and successful achievements in the Journal. This would inevitably prove of importance to wider communities both locally and internationally and such publications would be accessible on a global and permanent basis.

One of the incentives to publish industrial mining and metallurgical information is to achieve recognition for such information, which in turn leads to ensuring the advancement of practices in the relevant industries. Recognition is manifested by the Institute through the awarding of gold and silver medals to papers of outstanding significance and value. Medals for such papers are awarded annually on the occasion of the Institute’s August AGM.

I often wonder whether those in the general mining and metallurgical communities actually read and appreciate the relevance of high-value papers and the impact that such information can have on their sectors. Allow me to summarize two such examples.

The most recent paper to be awarded a gold medal at the 2024 AGM was co-authored by Prof Francois Malan and Prof John Napier from the University of Pretoria working in tandem with the platinum industry. In this case, the paper was entitled ‘Numerical simulation of large-scale pillar layouts’ with particular reference to platinum mining. The purpose of the paper was to outline an efficient numerical strategy that can be used to assess large-scale pillar layout performance while retaining the ability to modify individual pillar constitutive behaviour. Although computational solution techniques are impressive, a major difficulty had been encountered in assigning suitable material properties to the pillars and in devising information of the layered rock strata overlying the mine excavations. The proposed method is applied to compare estimated average pillar stress values against values determined by detailed modelling and against observed behaviour. Such information has undoubted significance in terms of efficiency, safety and cost for the platinum mining industry.

A second paper, penned by Prof Josias van der Merwe (sadly recently deceased) working in collaboration with Eskom, was awarded a silver medal in 2021. Entitled ‘Investigation of the mechanism for fireside corrosion in coal-fired boilers in South Africa’, this paper presented the underlying causes leading to the coal fleet’s chronic boiler-tube failures. The consequences of such failures have played a major role in load shedding thereby contributing significantly to the slowing of industrial growth and techno-economic development in South Africa.

As highlighted by Neil Stacey in his Ground Up editorial in December 2022, this latter paper presented far more fundamental and previously unknown reasons for the failure rate of metal in Eskom’s boilers. In effect, the impact of sub-standard coal – coal running at 2% sulfur, a value well above the specification of 1.3% – along with low oxygen partial pressures (to keep NOx levels down) – have created conditions that promote the formation of iron sulfides (FeS), a brittle metal. This component compromises the strength of the boiler tubes which then fail in the harsh environment of Eskom’s boilers, thereby resulting in stoppages. This has led to significant load shedding with major impacts on every sector across the country.

I hope that these examples provide impetus for those in the mining and metallurgical industries to expand their roles in publishing papers of technical significance in the SAIMM Journal.

It is against this background that topic-themed editions of the SAIMM Journal have now been introduced and will be published between general-paper editions. This will hopefully ensure even more contributions and from wider sources across the academic, technical, industrial and professional sectors in future, thereby leading to further knowledge-sharing across the mining and metallurgical industries – both in this country and abroad.

R.M.S. Falcon
SAIMM Publications Editor

ESG and finding tools to help ‘think about things differently’

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Created: Monday, 09 September 2024 13:30

Written by G.L. Smith

I have always been fascinated by how things work, and my mother often commented that I got more pleasure from pulling my toys apart and rebuilding them than from playing with them. Learning, or should I say ‘trying to understand how things work, why they work, and then how to do it differently’ is an ongoing passion for me. The Why, How and What If may have driven my family crazy at times but they are questions that have shaped my life.

A key learning has been that if you look at a problem the same way (with the same biases!) you are likely to come up with the same solution (or perhaps a slight variant). So, to find a new solution you must look at a problem differently, from an alternative perspective. This needs to be a conscious, intentional process requiring others’ perspectives, experiences, and competencies - not just your own. Another learning is that to solve challenges we need a thinking framework, a logic construct - a ‘tool’. It has been said that a key evolutionary step in the journey to being Homo Sapiens was the use of tools My grandchildren tease me, as I so often say to them, ‘The most powerful part of your body is your brain – use it first’.

Currently I am on a journey to better understand how we could, as an industry, move from seeing ESG (environmental, social, governance) as a burden, to being a strategic enabler by changing the ‘how I see the problem’ to be able to create a new solution; while the ‘tool’ that I’m finding most useful is that of systems thinking, specifically complex adaptive systems and industrial ecology.

Moving into a little bit of theory: complex systems are systems, comprising multiple parts that may interact and whose behaviour is intrinsically difficult to model due to the dependencies, competition, relationships, or other types of interactions between their parts or between a given system and its environment over both time and location. Systems that are ‘complex’ have distinct properties that arise from these relationships that lead to collective behaviours and how the system interacts and forms relationships with its environment. Complex systems can be understood as an alternative paradigm to reductionism, which attempts to explain systems in terms of their constituent parts and the individual interactions between them. An adaptive system, or complex adaptive system, is a special case of complex systems, which can adapt its behaviour according to changes in its environment or in parts of the system itself. In this way, the system can improve its performance through a continuing interaction with its environment over time.

Industrial ecology is the study of systemic relationships between society, the economy, and the natural environment. It focuses on the use of technology to reduce environmental impacts and reconcile human development with environmental stewardship while recognizing the importance of socioeconomic factors in achieving these goals viz. sustainability, which is the goal of ESG.

So, I’ve come to a simple but profound realization: that critical shift in perspective that reshapes the pool of possible solutions. We must acknowledge that mining is a complex adaptive system, an industrial ecology, with both a temporal and spatial impact on society, environment and economy, if we are to achieve industry sustainability for the generations to come.

The thought I would like to leave you with is that I firmly believe that we as professionals should revisit our business strategies based on an industrial ecology logic and build solutions that consider the interacting components as parts of a complex adaptive system, to develop sustainability and obtain enduring social licence to operate.

G.L. Smith Pr Eng PhD
SAIMM Honorary Life Fellow & Past President

Value provided by the Institute

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Created: Thursday, 08 August 2024 07:08

Written by T.R. Stacey

This year the SAIMM will celebrate its 130th ‘birthday’. In this commentary I would like to focus on the value and service that the Institute has provided to the mining and metallurgical industries.

The SAIMM is a very valuable medium through which members in industry, academics, and researchers can interact with others in seminars and conferences, and through publication in the Journal. These conferences and publications have often focused on Southern African conditions and operations, but numerous international conferences have also been hosted. Such conferences provide opportunity for informal exchange of information between delegates, which adds value beyond that of the published proceedings. The proceedings of the more recent conferences (in the electronic era) are all open access, and it is expected that soon they will be searchable online by keywords. This will make many practical papers readily available. The Journal is also open access, and papers can be easily retrieved through an online search. The Journal has recently been attracting a significant number of contributions from other countries. In the current era in which access to international journals is costly, and many open access journals charge authors for publication, the Institute can be very proud of the fact that it provides the free, open access service to all, and hence value to the mining and metallurgical industries. I would now like to focus further on publication ‘value’.

In his paper ‘Journal impact factors – the good, the bad and the ugly’ in the September 2022 issue of the SAIMM Journal, Professor Francois Malan questioned the value of journal impact factors and numbers of citations as a measure of research excellence. He indicated that there is a growing movement towards an alternative approach. Numbers of citations, and thus impact factors, are open to manipulation by researchers and research organizations to ‘demonstrate’ research excellence. However, there is a significant difference between numbers of citations (often manipulated) and numbers of influential citations. As an example, an academic colleague of mine was invited to co-author a paper to which he had provided editing input. Based on some 200 citations, this proved to be his ‘best’ paper, but it only achieved a single ‘influential’ citation. A citation in a paper that deals with the cited information in some detail is an influential one, rather than a citation that just appears, with no further ‘use’ of its content. I suggest that the value created by a paper would be a significantly better measure of research excellence than citations or impact factors.
In engineering, and particularly in the mining and metallurgical sphere, operators will frequently make use of published information for the benefit of their operation but will rarely prepare any paper in which they would cite that information. Therefore, they have gained value from the published information, and perhaps this is a much better measure of research excellence than citations. In this context ‘value’ has many meanings. It can be financial: for example, a student of mine described a case in which additional geotechnical investigation yielded a projected financial benefit of 70 times the cost of the investigations; but perhaps more importantly it will include ‘benefit to the world values’ such as health and safety, social, environmental, humanitarian, and ecological values.

In the mining and metallurgical industries there are regular examples of significant achievements and problems. Publication of the bases of the achievements, and the causes of the problems, could be of considerable value to other companies in the broader mining sphere and thus create value in general. By way of contrast, an academic publication in an area of scientific interest may achieve many academic citations but provide no real value to the mining and metallurgical industries.
Both industry and research personnel are therefore encouraged to publish solutions to problems and explanations of problems, and thus create value for the benefit of the industry at large. Perhaps mining companies should quantify the value that they aim for in relative terms – for example, to be in the upper quartile regarding safety, to be in the upper quartile regarding environmental control, or to be in the lower quartile of the cost curve. This would give researchers and operators guidelines against which to measure the value of their publications.

There are relatively few mining-related journals published in the world, and the Institute and its members can be proud that our Journal, which has now been in publication for 70 years, is one of those and is internationally recognized. The SAIMM Journal grew out of that of the Chemical Metallurgical and Mining Society of South Africa, which began publication in about 1900. Thus, we can also be proud that the SAIMM has been providing service and value to our own industries and those in other countries for 130 years now. I trust it will continue to do so for many years in the future.

T.R. Stacey