No mine for old men? : New technology and digitalization in a mining organization

Abstract: This master thesis stems from the program of Industrial Design Engineering at Luleå University of Technology and was conducted during the spring semester of 2021. The thesis was made incollaboration with Boliden Mines. Boliden Mines is a part of the metal company Boliden Minerals AB. Though the Swedish mining industry has come a long way from what the mining work looked like 40years ago, the climate goals of the government and increasing competition from low wage countries rises the demands for sustainability and productivity. Adjustments to live up to these demands will require implementation of innovative new technology and digital tools, which makes the implementation process very important. The purpose of the thesis was to investigate the miners’ experiences and attitudes toward newtechnology and digitalization in Boliden’s Swedish mines to identify factors of success anddevelopment areas in the implementation process. The data collection was made through 21 semi-structured interviews that were held via MicrosoftTeams or via phone. Interview topics was implementation of tablets, new systems for risk assessmentand remote-controlled and semi-autonomous machines. The results of the interviews were analyzedand thematized into three main themes: Implementation process, Ways of working and Trust in thetechnology. The implementation process showed that miners and supervisors feel like there is an urgency to startthe implementation projects, but that the end becomes unclear. Introductions and education in the newsystems are mostly satisfactory. There is no external communication from the projects so very fewhave knowledge about an implementation that the miner or interviewees are not involved in. A few miners get to participate in these projects which is seen as satisfactory by the interviewees. The waysof working are not being adjusted to the new prerequisites that the technology brings. This shows inlacking maintenance and not having the required infrastructure in place before implementation ofmachines. The workers thinks that the work environment has been immensely improved which isshowing in both physical and social aspects of the work and is very appreciated by the miners. Thereis also a lack of trust in the technology among the miners. This is partly grounded in fear of loosing the “touch”, which is the craftmanship knowledge of the mining work. Some of the sceptisism towards technology also stems from experiences with other projects that did not deliver the quality that was expected. Boliden’s factors of success are participation, work environment, and introductions and education.They are good at involving the end users in the implementation and the improvements of the work environment are valuable. They also provide good introductions and education for their employees. Development areas are that Boliden need to communicate externally about the projects. This is needed because they must investigate the beginnings and ends of the project to find out the cause for why theydo not feel properly finished. Though the education is good, Boliden should adjust the level of which it is held. Today it is assumed that the knowledge and interest is quite high, but this leaves the olderand uninterested workers behind. Lastly, Boliden should review their working methods with andaround the technology implemented to make sure they get the most out of their investments.