Mechanistic improvements are almost worthless if miners are unable to improve the people-centric processes and engagement on which technical innovations rely, according to Proudfoot managing director of natural resources (EMEAA), Neil Maslen.

"Mining organisations have for some time been exploring future ways of work," he said. "This has included some topics that have been around for many years such as automation, and perhaps others that are a little newer to our industry, such as digitalisation.

"But today the future of work encapsulates so much more than just how we work; on how we focus on the improvement of productivity, margin and cash. The future of work applies equally to how we focus on people; how we change our role in the communities in which we operate, and how we actually bring this humanistic aspect to mechanistic improvement."

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