Hivekit launches OPS.AI, enabling AI-powered end-to-end mine operations

Early tests against historic mine operations data showed a 21% improvement in compliance to plan, alongside significant improvements in the utilisation of existing resources.

OPS.AI achieves these efficiency gains by connecting the mine’s strategic and production plans with day-to-day operational execution. It maps high-level production goals to operational steps while taking into account the site’s full operational context – from asset tracking and performance metrics to geospatial information and data from systems such as ventilation, dewatering, and maintenance. This holistic, real-time view of the operation allows OPS.AI to plan around actual resource availability, identify correlations, constraints, and bottlenecks, and adjust shift goals and production cycles to real-world conditions.

The result is a highly optimised and dynamic shift plan that takes both the mine’s goals and its current operational situation into account. OPS.AI can assign tasks, cycles, and targets, and allocate people, vehicles, and other resources accordingly. But the shift plan is anything but static. Human supervisors remain in control. Any changes or adjustments made by supervisors are fed back into OPS.AI, which dynamically replans around them. Likewise, as ground conditions change, trucks break down, employees become unavailable, or ventilation systems fail, OPS.AI takes those events into account and adjusts the operational plan accordingly.

“Mine plans are built around assumptions about equipment, people, infrastructure, and conditions – but the reality underground or in the pit changes constantly,” said Wolfram Hempel, CEO at Hivekit. “OPS.AI continuously reconciles what was supposed to happen with what is actually happening and helps the operation determine what should happen next.”

All proposed plans and actions are secured by a deterministic constraint layer – an additional checkpoint designed to offset the inherent uncertainty of AI systems. OPS.AI checks proposed plans against a defined set of operational rules and constraints, including safety requirements, mandatory break times, ventilation restrictions, equipment limitations, and site-specific operating rules. If a proposed plan or action violates one of these constraints, it is automatically rejected before it can be presented or executed. AI proposes; deterministic rules validate; authorised humans remain in control. OPS.AI is not limited to planning and replanning. It also includes an operational Copilot for mine managers, supervisors and dispatchers.

Users can ask questions such as: “How many tonnes have we lost due to the ventilation system breakdown?” or “What is the total output of all headings on Level 12?” Rather than relying solely on a language model to produce an answer, the Copilot understands the structure and nature of the operational data available within the Hivekit platform.

It translates questions into structured queries against the underlying data, interprets the results, and presents them to the user through answers, tables, and visualisations. The Copilot is also capable of taking action. Within their existing permissions, authorised users can issue operational directives such as “Assign a new driver to Truck 14” or “Remove Stope 112 from today’s production plan.”

OPS.AI translates these instructions into actions within the underlying operational system while applying the same permission, validation and constraint layers used throughout the platform. OPS.AI is now available as part of the wider Hivekit platform, which provides the operational data foundation and digital twin by aggregating, processing, and visualising information from across the mine.

By combining mine planning, live operational data, AI-driven optimisation, deterministic constraints, and human oversight, OPS.AI is designed to help mines respond faster to changing conditions, make better use of existing resources, and keep execution aligned with production goals.

Read the article online at: https://www.globalminingreview.com/mining/12082026/hivekit-launches-opsai-enabling-ai-powered-end-to-end-mine-operations/