Komatsu buys Mine Site Technologies to spur digital growth
Background
Komatsu develops and supplies technologies, equipment and services for the construction, mining, forklift, industrial and forestry markets. For a century, the company has been creating value for its customers through manufacturing and technology innovation, partnering with others to empower a sustainable future where people, business and the planet thrive together.
Front-line industries worldwide use Komatsu solutions to develop modern infrastructure, extract fundamental minerals, maintain forests and create consumer products. The company's global service and distributor networks support customer operations to enhance safety and productivity while optimising performance.
Why has Komatsu bought Mine Site Technologies?
Komatsu, through its wholly owned subsidiary in Australia, has agreed to acquire Mine Site Technologies (MST Global), a provider of operational optimisation platforms for underground mining that leverage communication devices and position tracking systems.
Komatsu is planning to close the acquisition on July 1, on the condition that all necessary procedures for closing are completed.
As global demand for essential resources requires Komatsu’s customers to go underground for mineral deposits, the company is rapidly developing new technologies, equipment and solutions to support the industry’s future needs.
Empowering its customers growing use of digitalisation and automation to improve safety and productivity, Komatsu plans to work with MST Global to help customers build digital ecosystems with real-time insights and alerts, voice and communication technologies, software solutions, robust network infrastructure and wireless and geospatial technologies.
How will the acquisition benefit both companies?
Together the companies will work to increase availability of high-speed, low latency digital communication, which is necessary to: provide mission-critical communication, integrate IoT sensors, increase the volume of information communicated and enable real-time tracking, monitoring and automation of mine operations.
For 30 years, Sydney-based MST Global has specialised in developing and delivering ruggedised, fit for purpose solutions and services partnering with mining and tunneling customers on their digital strategy to unearth safety and productivity improvements.
With a global customer base, MST Global offers a platform to visualise and monitor the underground mining environment and enable control from a remote operations center, thus optimising mine operations to increase safety and productivity whilst safeguarding the environment. The solutions contribute to the digitisation and automation of underground mining operations.
Digital twin technology supports digitalisation growth
MST Global solutions enable communication between operators and mining equipment, as well as position tracking for operators and equipment, leveraging optical fiber broadband communication systems, which create a real-time geospatial digital twin of underground operations: an important and fundamental building block for digitalisation.
By adding MST Global's experience and expertise in the introduction of communication devices and optimisation platforms, Komatsu aims to enhance the speed at which it offers advanced technology solutions, including the automation and teleoperation of mining equipment underground.
As per the company’s ongoing mid-term management plan “DANTOTSU Value - Together, to ‘The Next’ for sustainable growth”, Komatsu is working to expand offerings for underground hard rock mining, creating new value for customers with the development of new equipment, processes and technologies that will help operations step forward to the next stage for the workplace of the future and provide a more sustainable environment for the next generation.