Mining in focus
on mining companies to train locally, as
well as the continent’s ever-increasing
youth bulge.
With a newly launched training
approach, the institute hopes to address
this localisation need and speak to the
headaches of the hypothetical project
manager in Liberia.
Take the training to the learners
ATI busy setting up a mobile training facility early in November 2018 at a mine in Botswana.
The first intake of students at ATI’s mobile unit hard at work a month after it was first constructed.
ATI’s skills development programmes have benefitted a range of students and workers across southern
Africa.
[30] MINING MIRROR FEBRUARY 2019
“We refer to it as a ‘modular training
solution’,” says Breton Scott, a mining
engineer who recently joined ATI to
implement site-based training for ATI
across the continent. “We know that
mines in remote sites find it difficult to
access a proper training campus or fixed
training site,” he says.
About 10 years ago, Scott visited a
mine in Botswana where Komatsu ran
a portable simulation unit that allowed
trainees to operate a dump truck or
hydraulic shovel in virtual reality. The
unit was trailer-mounted and travelled
across the SADC region. Several OEMs
have followed this approach; simulating
open-pit conditions to feed the industry
with a pool of trained operators.
ATI has been closely following such
mobile technology-based approaches,
thinking that a similar model could
easily be applied to artisan training. “The
question we asked ourselves was, could
we set up an ATI training facility that is
trailer-mounted, containerise it, drive it
on a truck to a site, and convert it into a
classroom?” says Sean Jones, managing
director of ATI.
ATI crossed paths with Scott in
2014 through a mutual connection.
Scott’s company, Bowline Professional
Services, has pioneered the ‘mine-in-a-
box’ concept, and when the two parties
started to exchange ideas about the
Komatsu story, exploring the possibilities
of mobile training, they realised the sky
is the limit.
Scott’s mine-in-a-box offers a
solution to small-scale miners by taking
advantage of modular technologies. “The
most critical piece of equipment for any
small mining operation is the process
plant. The mine itself is a standard
materials-moving operation, so to find
yellow metal and start digging is not an
issue. It’s designing the plant and getting
the metallurgy right that is challenging.”
With the mine-in-a-box concept,
the process plant can be configured and
fabricated in Johannesburg, shipped to
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