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

• Main Author: Löfgren, Anna
• Format: Bachelor Thesis
• Language: English
• Published: Luleå tekniska universitet, Institutionen för ekonomi, teknik, konst och samhälle 2021
• Subjects: Mine; implementation process; new technology; digitalization; Gruva; implementationsprocess; ny teknik; digitalisering; Production Engineering; Human Work Science and Ergonomics; Produktionsteknik; arbetsvetenskap och ergonomi; Design; Luleå
• Online Access: http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:ltu:diva-86581

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 ...