Mining, like many other industrial sectors, generates large volumes of data. Much of the initial IIoT discourse focused on cloud computing, which meant that large quantities of raw data would be dispatched to cloud-based data lakes, analysed and used in optimisation algorithms to drive real-time decision making.

New systems can be natively designed and built to take advantage of edge automation, and current systems can be retrofitted with edge controllers installed in parallel with existing automation to obtain the most important data from legacy hardware and newer IIoT devices.

This white paper explores how edge automation plays a foundational role for applying digital transformation in the mining and metals industries.