FUTURE MINING ENGINEERS: EDUCATIONAL DEVELOPMENT STRATEGY
by Malcolm Scoble
Department of Mining Engineering, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, Canada and
David Laurence
School of Mining Engineering, University of New South Wales, Sydney, Australia
Abstract:
Significant developments in future mining systems, technology and best practices are emerging that are driven by issues relating to human resources, competitiveness, environmental and social responsibility, within the dynamics of globalization. It is proposed that the definition of the role and attributes of the mining engineer in the mine life cycle needs to be viewed more holistically in the face of increasingly more diverse and complex responsibilities. These developments are motivating the need to consider a fresh approach to mining education and training at all levels for industry.
A growing diversity and complexity of professional responsibilities is extending the mining engineer’s broadly based skill set and reinforcing the need to play a central role within
increasingly interdisciplinary teams. On the other hand, the imminent new technologies that will transform the mining process are prompting the assumption that more focused and specialized skill sets will be needed. A way forward is suggested that would first define a blueprint for the future mine, as an attempt to characterize the systems architecture, processes and organization of the next generation mine. This can be the basis for assessing the nature of the workforce and distribution of responsibilities, from which can be inferred the skills and training requirements. In the context of the mining engineer, the paper explores how understanding such future
requirements will enable more proactive development of a strategy for educational development.
The paper then concludes by considering issues and lessons learned from some recent mining educational development initiatives underway in Australia and Canada that are shaping significant change.
Introduction:
10 years ago the Minerals Council of Australia published “Back from the Brink – Reshaping Minerals Tertiary Education” (Minerals Council of Australia, 1998). Without changes, it was suggested that Australia’s minerals education could be “pushed over the brink of viability as a long term supplier of the graduates that Australian industry will need in years ahead.” The paper pointed out “graduates often have a poor understanding of how their theoretical knowledge can be applied in practice. They also tend to be unaware of the importance of communication and
“people skills”, how business decisions are made, OHS, the demands of life in (often remote) operational settings and other significant issues facing industry” and “undergraduate education should deliver technical excellence in the fundamental principles of science and engineering, an understanding of broader issues facing the industry and the ability to continue to learn.” This discussion paper was the catalyst for change in mining engineering education in Australia and one of its tangible outcomes is Mining Education Australia, the joint venture between the top three Australian mining schools. This and other initiatives have eased the supply shortages in terms of quantity and quality but challenges will need to be met in the future.
The world of mining has changed dramatically in the past 10 years with the economic development of China and India; record commodity prices; stability in some resource-rich countries (e.g. South East Asia); instability in others (e.g. Africa); greater recognition of the need for community engagement; and so on. Thus it is timely to analyse and attempt to describe what skill sets a mining engineer needs to thrive in this dramatically changing environment.
The industry has expressed a greater commitment to new technology and practices as part of the quest towards improved health and safety, competitiveness, sustainable development and corporate social responsibility. Mining engineers who are strongly grounded in enabling
technologies and systems engineering, as well as in change management and innovation, will be key prerequisites to success in technology transfer and process transformation for the next generation mine. New mining systems technology, as well as process adaptation for best practices, in the hands of a next generation of innovative mining engineers offers the solution to addressing the new interactive issues that are emerging, for example, related to globalization, human resources, automation and control, water and energy issues, and climate change.
The current issues in recruitment and retention of human resources, compounded by the ongoing global mining boom and demographics-based HR crisis, have prompted significant recent initiatives, although these have yet to look too far in the future. In Canada this has resulted in the formation of the Mining Industry Human Resources Council, funded by the Canadian
government (http://www.mihr.ca). The Council collaborates with all communities of interest (employers, educators, organized labour, Aboriginal groups, and others) to address human resources challenges facing the Canadian minerals and metals sector. A related initiative in Australia is the Mining Industry Skills Centre (http://www.miskillscentre.com.au). This has a vision to create a "One Stop Shop" for both industry and government on all matters relating to the training and development of a sustainable workforce to meet the mining industry's current and future needs. The HR crisis also underlines the priority need to address mining education, not only from the point of view of product quantity but also quality, relevance and alignment. Re- engineering the mining education process is getting underway in some schools and recognized to be a challenge that needs to be shared together by industry and academia.
Mining engineering curricula in Australia generally evolved by focusing on the academic
requirements associated with a mine manager’s statutory certificate of competency (Laurence and Galvin 2006). It is no longer adequate to just educate mining engineers in how to design and operate mines safely. There remains a necessity for a strong focus on these skills, but this potentially risks the exclusion of other knowledge and skill sets which are becoming increasingly relevant. The expectations of the capabilities of the future mining engineer, on the part of both industry and society, are shifting in response to the need to accommodate the dynamics of technology advances as well as changing real world issues and the paradigm of sustainable mining.
A future mine blueprint would attempt to clearly show the integration of the next generation mining systems architecture, technologies and processes. If this next generation mine can be characterized reliably then it should be a basis for identifying not only the human capital, in terms of the distribution of employees and work responsibilities, but also what then can be inferred as the skill set and capability requirements. This in turn should be a model on which to construct an educational development strategy. It seems logical that industry would be best served by relating future mining systems to sustainability drivers and technology advances. There is then an ability to account for human resources implications in its strategic planning. From the university viewpoint, it is important to plan more strategically and anticipate the future mining needs through proactive educational development.
A holistic view of mining engineering:
A more holistic view of mining engineering, based upon a strong framework of more diverse systems for mine design and planning needs to be promoted. It is important to anchor the core systems of mining, mineral processing and geology in the context of mining engineering. The core systems traditionally bring together the interaction between the mineral resources, mining and processing systems. Other engineering and applied science contributions support the technologies and practices that account for equipment, power, water etc. Also, it is becoming increasingly important to recognize the interdependence that exists between environmental and social factors that now need to be related to traditional technical and economic factors in mine design, planning and management, see Figure 1. It appears to be sensible that this more holistic framework could be rooted in a paradigm of sustainable mineral resources development. The need to account for social licence, environmental and social impact assessment, regulatory and permitting constraints, risk assessment and management in mine design and planning is becoming paramount. Also, the concept of the mine life cycle needs to be reflected in that framework, encompassing exploration, development, construction, production, rehabilitation/reclamation and closure. In this context, the mining engineer needs to become even more an integrator of diverse skill sets and best practices, and a coordinator of an increasingly interdisciplinary team. The management of projects and people based upon strong leadership and social intelligence are fundamental to success in this role.
GEOSCIENCES
ENGINEERING SCIENCES
ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES
MANAGEMENT SCIENCES MINING
SCIENCES
SOCIAL SCIENCES
MINERAL RESOURCES MANAGEMENT
OHS GEOMECHANICS
VENTILATION WATER, ENERGY
ENVIRONMENTAL
& SOCIAL SCIENCES
GROUND EXCAVATION,
MATERIALS HANDLING MINERAL
PROCESSING
POLICY AND LAW
MINE LIFE CYCLE:
DESIGN --- PLANNING &
OPERATION
ASSET MANAGEMENT
Figure 1. A more holistic view of mining engineering.
Infusion of other disciplines into mining engineering
Interdisciplinary collaboration can leverage synergies between university researchers and teachers that can enhance the capacity of relatively insular and small mining schools. The last decade has seen a movement in mining education and research towards more interdisciplinary collaboration to focus more diverse expertise on issues such as environmental stewardship, and sustainable development. History, however, shows us some notable contributions from outside the mining discipline, for example, in mine ventilation, explosives and blasting.
UBC mining led an application to the Canadian government for research funding in 1997 to form a Canadian Network for Sustainable Mining, involving several universities integrating expertise in mining, environmental and social sciences. In some respects it was ahead of its time.
Persistence over subsequent years met with significant successes but not on the scale of a large national network. Mining research (and education) has not politically been on Canadian government radar screens and our branch of engineering has few stellar researchers to compete with the more appealing life scientists. That initial dedication to interdisciplinarity, however, grew into an independent model centered on the UBC campus in mining sustainability. A core group of professors and postgraduate students interacted to coalesce into what came to be called the Sustainability Working Group (SWG). This grew into a group of researchers, government and industry practitioners who shared a dedication to informal collaboration in a flexible learning mode. Members originating from diverse disciplines were needed to support credibility and the required range in capacity. This model built a legacy of capacity to relate all aspects of mining engineering to sustainability. Our aim for the mining school through SWG was to develop the capacity to integrate sustainability principles widely into our teaching, in parallel with a world class program of research. The model required that we infuse students from other relevant disciplines as well as mining engineering to add the diversity to fuel the growth of the initiative.
We worked to develop the commitment of academics from other disciplines at UBC and other Universities to join the graduate student supervisory teams and to fill critical gaps. The last link was to bridge to industrial, government and NGO partners in what proved to be a collaborative, interactive learning mechanism (Costa and Scoble, 2006). In addition to high quality research, the postgraduates from these non-engineering points of origin have been very successful in gaining excellent employment opportunities in mining and consulting companies, academia and government. The mining school has also greatly benefited from the legacy of their intellectual capital. These efforts continue to account for around 20% of our 85 total postgraduate student population in the mining engineering department.
Similarly, the UNSW School of Mining Engineering has hosted a Sustainable Mining Resources research group since 2000. Students working in this area generally have prior education in non- mining engineering disciplines. Research areas include mine closure; risk and safety
management; sustainable development indicators in mining; sustainable mining in developing countries and so on. Active collaboration is taking place both within Australia and more particular with mining schools in India, China and South East Asia. The School also hosts postgraduate coursework programs in mining engineering, designed principally for those in the mining industry who wish to pursue mining engineering careers without having to complete a full four year undergraduate degree or those who need a mining qualification to satisfy the Mine Managers Certificate educational requirements or simply other professionals looking to enter the mining industry. These alternative pathways to mining engineering have grown enormously in popularity over the past 5 years.
Future mine blueprint:
The mining engineer designs and plans the systems architecture of a mine through its life cycle and assumes a range of responsibilities for its development and operation to post-closure. Figure 2 demonstrates a classification of these areas of responsibility and reflects the observation of the diversity and complexity of the required personal skill sets, tools, and knowledge of best
practices. Three classes of responsibility are shown: social, environmental and technological.
Legislation, which in itself is a moving target, will often determine the nature of these
responsibilities. Although the mining engineer is required to possess a reasonable professional competency to deal with responsibilities in all three of these areas, assisted by the integration of interdisciplinary specialists, the significant level of proficiency needs to remain in the core, mining technological responsibilities. These interdisciplinary specialists for industry, for
example in community relations, law, environmental sciences, civil, electrical and mechanical engineering may exist on mine-site, in corporate headquarters or in internal or external consulting groups. The future mine is likely to see an increasing dependency on interdisciplinary support within the responsibility areas shown.
The current human resources crisis has created a dire shortage of experienced specialists but this will be compounded further by the need for a new breed of specialists as new technologies become implemented. The implementation of automation and control in both underground and surface mining systems is a particularly significant example, following on from the well established advances in process control in mineral processing plants. Underground automated drill-blast-transport systems in hard rock mines, particularly in block caving systems, are on the verge of widespread operational implementation (albeit after more than 20 years of sporadic research). The underground coal industry faces renewed advances in automated excavation, anti collision and process control technologies. Autonomous truck haulage is imminent in surface mines. Having the professional expertise to deal with these forms of excavation and transport automation, in addition to further mineral processing and environmental impact mitigation
technologies will test the ability to take competitive advantage of the new technological advances.
The same could be said for communications and information systems technologies in facilitating minewide information systems for enhanced production planning and control. These
technological changes to the operational environment are in the area of the core responsibilities for the mining engineer. The reliability and cost effectiveness of such systems will impact significantly on the mining engineer’s responsibilities. Above all, the considerations of systems safety and human factors will be paramount, particularly with respect to the potential interaction between automated systems and the workforce.
Figure 2 demonstrates the diverse and complex challenges to educational development for future mining. The next generation of educational programs need to generate a bachelor’s graduate with the ability to understand the holistic nature of mining engineering but with three professional priorities. The first priority is to seek excellence in the ability to deal with the core technological responsibilities. The second priority is to develop a fundamental understanding of the skill sets, tools and best practices to shoulder the environmental and social responsibilities. The third priority it to develop personal qualities and social intelligence, especially to gain the capability to excel in an interdisciplinary environment. The bachelor’s degree is thus a foundation qualification to enter the industry for the next stage of lifelong learning. That professional development will likely see further educational and training episodes, potentially undertaken within industry or returning to university for graduate programs. Companies are increasingly recognizing the need to adopt this approach, not only to develop but also to retain their human capital. These programs will likely continue to evolve to generate the ability for the mining generalist to assume a form of specialism, for example, focusing on applied mining (such as geostatistics, rock mechanics, blasting), environmental (such as groundwater, tailings management, Acid Rock Drainage), social (such as policy and regulation, community relations) or management sciences.
A particular emerging challenge is how to deal with the professional support in-house required for implementing and maintaining advanced technology mining systems. There appears to be at least four routes, not necessarily mutually exclusive, to meeting this challenge. For example, returning to the subject of underground mining automation, the first route is to develop further the existing concept whereby mining engineering and/or electro-mechanical-computer engineering undergraduates could take double degrees or minors. This generates a versatile graduate with complementary strength in both fields: mining engineering and automation-robotics.
Figure 2. Mining Engineering Classification of Areas of Responsibility
CO2 Emissions‐Sequestration Water Quality‐Conservation Energy Efficiency‐Power Reclamation‐Closure Waste Management Environmental Footprint
Ecosystem Integrity
Community Relations ‐ Social Licence Workplace Quality of Life
Skills & Training: Lifelong Learning Workforce Health and Safety
In‐situ mining‐processing
Geological reserves‐grade control Rock Fragmentation – Transport Ventilation–Emergency Response Geomechanical‐Hydrological Control
Asset Management Integrated Mine‐Mill Processes Systems Safety‐Human Factors Automation & Control Systems Minewide Information Systems
BUSINESS MANAGEMENT OPERATIONAL CONTROL
DESIGN & PLANNING
The second route would be to implement focused Master’s programs that transition mining engineering graduates from the aforementioned mining generalist into an automated mining systems (AMS) specialist. This is to develop a basic capacity in communications, robotics, monitoring and control technologies so as to ground the mining engineer in the fundamentals of such subject areas. The emphasis in such development would be to gain professional capacity to manage the operation and maintenance of automated mine production systems and their
associated personnel, legitimately taking responsibility for their production performance and systems safety. The mine will still be dependent upon the specialist automation engineer and technician (SAET), but that person will be focused on the architecture, hardware and software infrastructure, in terms of technical integrity. SAET personnel would be recruited from conventional electro-mechanical-computer technology backgrounds. In contrast, the AMS specialist should be able to relate mining production performance parameters (for example:
rockmass behavior, fragmentation, grade control, production rates and costs) to technology performance and risk (for example: availability, utilization and maintainability of the automated mining system). Communications and teamwork between the AMS and SAET personnel would be critical.
A third route would be to recruit SAET personnel with electro-mechanical-computer technology backgrounds and transition them through a Diploma or Master’s in mining engineering with a production focus. Finally, a fourth route that might supplement the other three, would be to facilitate distance education and short course programs to enable minesite personnel to cross-train and develop capacity, integrated into employment. These programs would be dependent upon
automation expertise being available from electro-mechanical-computer educational specialists with some mining experience.
Mining educational development:
Canada, Australia and other developed countries
Mining schools globally have traditionally seen recruitment and survival at risk during industry down cycles, for example at the turn of 2000 many North American, as well as Australian schools were close to extinction (Scoble, 2003). Many are now in a state of renaissance, after decades of being the Cinderella on Campus. At UBC a concerted development effort has raised mining student recruitment significantly as well as industry and B.C. government financial support to form the N. B. Keevil Institute for Mining Engineering (http://www.mining.ubc.ca). Its staff are currently working with both the students and its Industry Advisory Committee to reappraise its curriculum to meet a new definition for the future mine and its mining engineer.
Mining Education Australia, the proposed national school of mining engineering is a formal partnership between the MCA’s Minerals Tertiary Education Council (MTEC), Curtin University of Technology, the University of NSW, and the University of Queensland. In the words of the MCA’s Chief Executive, Mr Mitchell H. Hooke, “developing the collaborative university program is part of the MCA’s nationally coordinated strategy for the minerals industry to overcome the well-documented global shortage of professionals and tradespeople. Mining Education Australia is being designed to strengthen our alliance with Australia’s premier
suppliers of mining engineering graduates and help alleviate the skills crisis by providing a dependable source of well qualified mining engineers into the next decade” (Hooke 2005).
MEA in a nutshell provides a common curriculum for the final two years of mining engineering education across the three institutions, which represent the three largest mining states. It is now in its second year and overall, the program has succeeded in its goal of providing the best education for its participating students of any mining program in the world. Initiatives include project-based learning in many of the subjects, elimination of exams, group work and peer reviews.
The general engineering fraternity at universities worldwide has been evaluating the quality of their educational experience provided to students in recent years. In a new approach to measuring Australasian higher education quality, a survey was conducted in 2007 by the Australian Council for Educational Research (ACER) on “student engagement”, defined as student’s involvement with activities and conditions likely to generate high-quality learning. This built upon an earlier North American National Survey of Student Engagement. Measures of student engagement are aimed to provide information about an individual’s intrinsic involvement with their learning, and the extent to which they are making use of available educational opportunities (ACER, 2008).
The survey used six scales in a questionnaire, designed to tap a range of what were considered to be key educational Performance parameters that relate to engagement, see Table 1. These scales demonstrate the increased efforts on the part of academia to understand students and to enhance the effectiveness and efficiency of their educational efforts.
One ACER scale, work integrated learning, has been seen in Canada to significantly reinforce the university learning experience through the implementation of a cooperative education (COOP) model. Students are formally tutored in work related skill sets by a central campus COOP professional group which also coordinates successively more responsible 4 month work terms spent in industry. The UBC mining engineering COOP bachelor’s degree involves 8 academic terms and 5 work terms, resulting in a 5 year degree period (http://www.coop.apsc.ubc.ca). The
value of such carefully managed work term experience, however, is significant in terms of personal and professional development.
Table 1. Six Scales of Student Engagement (ACER, 2008)
Scale Description Academic Challenge Extent to which expectations-assessments challenge students to learn
Active Learning Student’s efforts to actively construct their knowledge Student and Staff Interactions Level and nature of students contact with teaching staff Enriching Educational Experiences Participation in broadening educational activities Supportive Learning Environment Feelings of legitimation within the university community Work Integrated Learning Integration of employment-focused work experiences into study Many engineering academics are looking to the Master’s degree as becoming the professional engineering degree of the future because of difficulties of cramming enough of the diverse courses into the bachelor degree curriculum over four years (Galloway, 2007). (The Mining Engineering undergraduate degree at UBC like many others was reduced from five to four years in length in the nineties.) Other strategies include appending blocks of courses in relevant disciplines onto a mining engineering degree, for example as a Minor in Management, or a specialist area such as a Minor in Automation and Control, or Environmental Management, or Community Relations. Another strategy, as discussed earlier, may be to recruit engineers or scientists from advanced technology areas who themselves have completed Minors in Mining Engineering. UBC offers a Certificate in Mining Studies, aimed to enable cross-training, later in the career to acquire new skill sets for upward or lateral mobility in a professional career (Scoble 2007). The Certificate is based on a blend of internet-based courses and conventional short courses (http://www.edumine.com/xedumine/ubcminingcertificate.htm ). This enables the
integration of learning into employment patterns. The recognition of the value of lifelong learning in developing the mine’s human capital is beginning to be appreciated, as companies begin to promote professional development opportunities with employees. This process will likely gain momentum as the future mine transforms into a Learning Organization (Scoble, 2007).
Mining Schools in the Developing World
The context of tertiary minerals education in many developing countries differs significantly from that of Australia and Canada. In India, for example, numerous mining schools graduate large numbers of students. Anecdotally, it is believed that most of these graduates do not enter the mining industry, preferring to gain jobs in the information technology or similar industries. In Chile and Peru, the expanding mining industry is able to provide employment for most of its graduates. In China, there are large numbers of both schools and students but again many students do not enter the industry. Opportunities exist for mining schools in Canada and Australia, for example, to admit the best of these students at a postgraduate level to enable the student to:
• be exposed to state-of-the-art mining technologies as practiced in two of the most efficient mining countries
• learn in English
• establish a network of other professionals
• enable these students to return to their careers with a global outlook as future mine and general managers
University-Industry Relations
This paper has addressed the skill set required of future mining engineers. It needs to be
remembered that the universities and mining schools therein are where mining engineers develop those skills. Without motivated and talented academics teaching these skills they will not be
transferred to the mining engineer of the future mine. The outcomes of Back from the Brink bear repeating: “Research is not severable from issues surrounding education…. Research has a significant role in:
1. promoting higher quality undergraduate education 2. developing the international standing of universities 3. establishing academic “nurseries”
4. transferring up to date technology to undergraduates.”
Furthermore, it stated that universities must reward behaviour “aimed at placing a priority on the development of teaching excellence in tertiary education.”
In Australia, mining academics have struggled to obtain research funding from government and especially in the case of non-coal projects, from industry. Mining engineers generally are attracted to a career in academia if they can pursue their research interests. Furthermore,
universities are increasingly promoting staff predominantly on the basis of research performance.
Without funding, the research will not be carried out, promotions will not happen and the talented staff will either leave the profession or not be attracted to it in the first place. Industry and
government need to support research capacity in the mining schools. Undoubtedly, it is sensible for a mining company to seek the best world class research capacity on campus to undertake a research task to address its R&D priorities. This capacity may well be located outside the mining school on that campus. There is a host of excellent research, however, that can be very successful in more applied areas that would be extremely supportive to a mining school. Industry has a role to play in fostering research in and around mines that generate the highly qualified people that will be the next generation of employees or academics. It also should consider investing directly in mining schools in order to ensure optimum graduate recruitment: high quality graduates that are aligned with industry needs (Scoble, 2008).
Conclusion:
The Minerals Council of Australia challenged the status quo with its discussion paper – Back from the Brink – Reshaping Minerals Tertiary Education. It was a catalyst that enabled the industry to fulfill its requirements for quality mining engineers in the period since its publication.
However, future mining engineers will require a fresh combination of interdisciplinary technical and social skill sets, based upon sound knowledge of technology and leading practice. Equally important, this must also be aligned with personal characteristics that bring innovation, ethics, teamwork, leadership and a passion for mining. Looking to the future, it seems sensible to pursue the ability to understand the characteristics of the future mine and to start to develop a longer term vision of a strategy for mining engineering schools to prepare for the future expectations of industry and society.
Mining is a very distinctive profession that will undoubtedly be transformed in the coming decades. An important task will be to reshape mining education to align with the changing needs that primarily appear to be driven by the dynamics of technological advances and sustainable development. It will also be critical to reinvigorate the human and physical resources that serve the educational process within our mining schools. This is a collaborative task for academics, alumni, industry and government together. Also, there is no reason why educational collaboration cannot involve global schools to the benefit of all.
Acknowledgements:
The authors would like to acknowledge the assistance of students and staff at UNSW and UBC.
The views expressed in this paper are personal and should not be construed to necessarily represent the formal viewpoints of the universities.
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