End-Users’ Perspectives on Digitalisation and Automation—Insights from the Swedish Mining Industry

Abstract Mining, like other industries, has progressed through a series of industrial revolutions, transitioning from disconnected, manually operated mines to operations dominated by safe, sustainable, semi-automated, and automated operations, driven by technological advancements such as digitalisation and automation. These changes have resulted in enhanced safety measures, cost reductions, and increased efficiency, while simultaneously altering the nature of mining work. This paper presents a study to assess the impacts, challenges, and opportunities of automation and digitalisation in the mining industry from an end-user’s perspective. The study is based on the overall combined results from two previous studies, one surveying the opinions of LHD operators and the other the opinions of mining production workers, extracted through two workshops. The findings indicate digitalisation and automation are predominantly perceived positively, but there are some negative attitudes. End-users have diverse opinions about the impact of digitalisation and automation on their work and the skill sets that will be required in the future, but they agree computer skills and understanding of the mining processes will continue to be crucial competencies in the future. Another common opinion is that machine maintenance is the most challenging aspect of the work to automate. The results highlight an increased need for further education enabling workers to manage new technologies as they are implemented.