A major miner is building a real-time digital twin of a gold mine in NSW. 

Australia’s largest gold miner, Newcrest Mining says it wants to improve the performance of its flagship Cadia mine in NSW by creating an exact digital replica of the mine. 

The virtual version will then change based on real-time data from sensors, letting Newcrest monitor progress, as well as plan changes and maintenance. 

It comes amidst a broader shift by Newcrest onto new cloud computing platforms, with all of the company’s key internal technology systems, including SAP enterprise systems, on to Microsoft’s Azure platform. 

The company is working with Melbourne data analytics firm Versor to build the underlying platforms for its Cadia recreation, with digital twin specialists Willow creating the visual appearance and interface.

“It’s a multi-year journey, we’ve been working on Microsoft technologies for a number of years to build out our digital platforms, and all the integrations to the systems at our site, whether that’s plant historians that record all the data off the bits of the plant, mobile fleet management systems or high definition cameras, there are lots of different data sources that are all integrated into a fairly large data lake,” Newcrest chief information officer Gavin Wood has told reporters. 

“The digital twin isn’t just a high-level view of the value chain, it actually goes right down to each individual piece of equipment, and what part it is playing, how it’s performing and what the optimal settings are for it.

“With all the different bits of fixed plant that are used to process the ore to turn that into gold, there’s a huge amount of equipment there being modelled.”

Newcrest revealed a fall in profits in its half-yearly result briefing earlier this year. Gold output was 20 per cent lower than the previous period, with the drop being partly blamed on the fact the mine was disrupted while an important piece of machinery underwent maintenance. The company says the digital twin will make its maintenance schedule much more efficient.