Komatsu acquires Mine Site Technologies

Komatsu is planning to close the acquisition on 1 July 2022, on the condition that all necessary procedures for closing are completed. The impact on Komatsu’s consolidated business results is estimated to be minimal.

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. 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 consistently delivered innovative solutions to address the needs of customers today and for the future. The company specialises in developing and delivering ruggedised, fit for purpose solutions and services partnering with mining and tunnelling customers on their digital strategy to unearth safety and productivity improvements. MST Global solutions enable communication between operators and mining equipment, as well as position tracking for operators and equipment, leveraging optical fibre broadband communication systems, which create a real-time geospatial digital twin of underground operations: an important and fundamental building block for digitalisation. 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 centre, 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.

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.

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.

Read the article online at: https://www.globalminingreview.com/technology-digitalisation/16062022/komatsu-acquires-mine-site-technologies/