Mobility has become an attractive add-on for the African mining industry, one of the continent's most important sectors.
So says Brendan Martin - CEO of Silverkeys Consulting, part of the Barnstone Group - who points out that mobile phones can provide a useful general communications channel for a mine, something that can be very useful in highly unionised environments.
One of the key drivers of mobile's growth in Africa has been the lack of infrastructure - many regions essentially leap-frogged copper altogether, Martin explains. That problem is, particularly, acute for mines which are typically located in remote areas, he adds.
According to MobiThinking's global mobile statistics 2012, Africa currently has around 644 million mobile phone subscribers, adding that for the vast majority of Africans, a mobile device will always be the primary way to access the Internet.
It also states that already, 70% of Egyptians, 57% of South Africans, 55% of Ghanaians, 54% of Kenyans, and 50% of Nigerians only access the Internet via mobile devices.
"Mobile communication plays a vital - and growing - role in the African society and business. We've already seen some great mobile innovation aimed at individuals and small enterprises - the next wave will be when bigger businesses start to exploit the possibilities of mobile properly," says Martin.
He also believes that mobile devices can also assist maintenance crews at mines to order or check spares and expedite processes from the "point of work".
The core mining processes can also benefit, he notes. "One mine in Indonesia claims that a mobile app has saved them $10 million by promoting better drilling and blasting decisions."
There's a health and safety dimension, too, Martin points out, explaining that an employee can now report health and safety issues immediately via a suitable app, without having to find a supervisor or a PC.
"Health and safety are huge issues for mines, and many risks are not reported because it's too difficult to do so," he adds.
Martin believes that the real game-changer is the extension of the mine's own enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems into the mobile channel.
According to Martin, one important benefit is that managers who are out of the office for extended periods will no longer act as bottlenecks in ERP workflows.
"Leave applications and procurement workflows are just some of the functions that a mobile app can easily enable. These types of mobile apps should be seen as entry-level and, in the case of SAP, can be downloaded from the SAP Store."
Thus, he points out that Silverkeys is working on asset management and service management apps to complement the Barnstone Mining Solution, SAP's All-in-One software preconfigured for a mid-cap mine.
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