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How Can We Re-Innovate the Mining Industry?
Saskia Duyvesteyn, Dawn Wellman
Rio Tinto
ABSTRACT: The mining industry is facing unprecedented pressures from environmental, social, economic, and
regulatory factors. To survive and thrive in this complex and dynamic context, the industry needs to re-innovate
its innovation processes and practices. This paper discusses how innovation in the mining industry has evolved
in the last decades, highlighting the shifts and trends in technology, intellectual property, risk, demonstration
and piloting, capital investment, collaboration, and partnerships. More consideration needs to be given to the
intersection of technology, people, and systems as a critical factor for successful implementation of innovation,
and how it affects the organizational culture, leadership, learning, and change management in the mining sector.
The paper identifies drivers, barriers, and enablers of innovation in the mining industry, and suggests some
directions for future research and practice, such as developing new frameworks, models, and tools to support
innovation, fostering cross-sectoral and multidisciplinary collaboration, and enhancing the social license and
sustainability of mining innovation.
HISTORY OF INNOVATION IN MINING
The mining industry is one of the oldest industries. Dating
more than 40,000 years ago, the oldest known mine on
archaeological record, the Ngwenya Mine in Eswatini
produced hematite to make red pigments. Not long after,
metals including gold, silver, copper, and iron began to be
discovered and mined for their value and utility in numer-
ous applications. With these came early innovations in min-
ing such as smelting, driving tunnels and shafts, blasting
and block caving, which rapidly advanced the development
of mining and are still cornerstones of the industry today.
With such longstanding history and use of tried-and-
true practices it is no surprise the mining industry is, and
has long been, viewed as an industry reliant on traditional
practices and slow to change. Clearly, the industry has
evolved from picks, shovels, and carts to state-of-the-art
industrial equipment utilizing automation, but how inno-
vative is the mining industry? What has historically driven
innovation in mining and how does it look different?
Innovation in the mining industry has been the sub-
ject of numerous publications, trade op-eds, books, and
discussions over the past 30+ years. As is common practice
in most technical areas, the number of patent applications
filed is frequently reviewed as a readily available metric to
measure innovation (Figure 1). While the number of pat-
ents provides an indicator of innovation, the issuance of a
patent does not provide any assurance the associated inno-
vation is ever put into practice. How then does one assess
the level of innovativeness of an industry?
Tilton et al. (Tilton and Landsberg, 1999 Aydin and
Tilton, 2000 Garcia et al., 2000, 2001 Tilton 2000,
2001a, b, 2002, 2003) conducted a series of studies in
which they evaluated the labor productivity of the U.S. and
Chilean copper industries with correlation to technological
innovation within the industry from 1975 to 2001. In the
U.S., labor productivity grew 3.4% from 1975 to 1980,
while in 1980 the annual labor productivity rate increased
to 19.9%. For these timeframes, Tilton and Landsberg
How Can We Re-Innovate the Mining Industry?
Saskia Duyvesteyn, Dawn Wellman
Rio Tinto
ABSTRACT: The mining industry is facing unprecedented pressures from environmental, social, economic, and
regulatory factors. To survive and thrive in this complex and dynamic context, the industry needs to re-innovate
its innovation processes and practices. This paper discusses how innovation in the mining industry has evolved
in the last decades, highlighting the shifts and trends in technology, intellectual property, risk, demonstration
and piloting, capital investment, collaboration, and partnerships. More consideration needs to be given to the
intersection of technology, people, and systems as a critical factor for successful implementation of innovation,
and how it affects the organizational culture, leadership, learning, and change management in the mining sector.
The paper identifies drivers, barriers, and enablers of innovation in the mining industry, and suggests some
directions for future research and practice, such as developing new frameworks, models, and tools to support
innovation, fostering cross-sectoral and multidisciplinary collaboration, and enhancing the social license and
sustainability of mining innovation.
HISTORY OF INNOVATION IN MINING
The mining industry is one of the oldest industries. Dating
more than 40,000 years ago, the oldest known mine on
archaeological record, the Ngwenya Mine in Eswatini
produced hematite to make red pigments. Not long after,
metals including gold, silver, copper, and iron began to be
discovered and mined for their value and utility in numer-
ous applications. With these came early innovations in min-
ing such as smelting, driving tunnels and shafts, blasting
and block caving, which rapidly advanced the development
of mining and are still cornerstones of the industry today.
With such longstanding history and use of tried-and-
true practices it is no surprise the mining industry is, and
has long been, viewed as an industry reliant on traditional
practices and slow to change. Clearly, the industry has
evolved from picks, shovels, and carts to state-of-the-art
industrial equipment utilizing automation, but how inno-
vative is the mining industry? What has historically driven
innovation in mining and how does it look different?
Innovation in the mining industry has been the sub-
ject of numerous publications, trade op-eds, books, and
discussions over the past 30+ years. As is common practice
in most technical areas, the number of patent applications
filed is frequently reviewed as a readily available metric to
measure innovation (Figure 1). While the number of pat-
ents provides an indicator of innovation, the issuance of a
patent does not provide any assurance the associated inno-
vation is ever put into practice. How then does one assess
the level of innovativeness of an industry?
Tilton et al. (Tilton and Landsberg, 1999 Aydin and
Tilton, 2000 Garcia et al., 2000, 2001 Tilton 2000,
2001a, b, 2002, 2003) conducted a series of studies in
which they evaluated the labor productivity of the U.S. and
Chilean copper industries with correlation to technological
innovation within the industry from 1975 to 2001. In the
U.S., labor productivity grew 3.4% from 1975 to 1980,
while in 1980 the annual labor productivity rate increased
to 19.9%. For these timeframes, Tilton and Landsberg