Why Mineral Processing Plants Still Can’t Turn Data Into Decisions

Most mineral processing facilities now operate across multiple disconnected systems. OEM platforms, SCADA systems, historians and laboratory tools all generate operational data, but they rarely form a single, unified picture. The result is that information exists in abundance, but it is still fragmented across platforms that were not designed to communicate with each other.

Mipac managing director Brian Forrester says this creates a growing challenge for decision-making on site.

“Processing facilities are generating unprecedented volumes of operational data, which presents a decision-making challenge,” he says.

“We now have more sensors, historians, dashboards, and analytics tools than ever before, and operators are being asked to make increasingly complex decisions in shorter timeframes. The true opportunity now lies in turning data into operational clarity, actionable insight, and better decision-making.”

Global Growth Lead Steven Cohen describes a consistent pattern where multiple systems operate in parallel, without forming a unified operational view.

“What we see consistently is the same structural problem: four, five, six separate monitoring platforms, each with its own interface, its own data model, its own user base,” he says. “OEM tools, historians, SCADA systems, laboratory systems, none of them designed to talk to each other. So nobody has a single operational picture.”

In many facilities, the people responsible for making operational decisions are not the same people working across those systems, which limits how effectively information can be used in real time.

Cohen also points to how most environments have evolved over time, with automation and data systems layered in gradually rather than designed as a single integrated architecture. As a result, integration often becomes a retrofit challenge.

While technology plays a role, organisational ownership is also a key factor in how effectively data is used.

“The technology to solve this largely exists. What’s missing is how it’s deployed, and who owns it,” Cohen says.

Rather than replacing existing infrastructure, the focus is increasingly on creating a connective layer that brings operational data together into a single usable view.

“The most effective approaches create a connective layer across existing systems and bring them together without replacing core infrastructure,” he says.

This approach allows information to be structured around operational decisions, surfacing what matters and highlighting anomalies as they emerge.

In practice, many facilities still rely on manual reconciliation across systems, with reporting often lagging behind live conditions. Alarm overload, duplicated monitoring and fragmented investigations all contribute to time spent reconstructing events rather than responding to them.

Cohen suggests a simple starting point for facilities: whether operators can access the most important operational information without switching between systems, and whether data is being used to support decisions rather than simply describe what has already happened.

The full Q&A with Steven Cohen and Brian Forrester, published in the Mine June 2026 edition, explores these challenges in more detail.

Read the full Q&A here.