This paper presents a literature review of maintenance strategies formulation. The purpose of this article is to provide an overview of different published concepts of maintenance strategies, distinguish the most common approaches to this issue and find a general tendency in strategies classification. Furthermore, the review is aimed to point out the importance of unscheduled downtime which might occur during equipment runtime in a production plant. The paper classifies the existing maintenance concepts and emphasizes key assumptions of the analysed strategies. The literature study and carried out analysis could be useful to find appropriate reliability assurance methods. In addition, defined maintenance approaches might help in decision making process in a company. The paper is a comprehensive overview of discussed strategies, which indicates the most frequent maintenance models in the analysed papers.

The sustainable development of an organisation requires a holistic approach to the evaluation of an enterprise’s goals and activities. The essential means enabling an organisation to achieve goals are business processes. Properly managed, business processes are a source of revenue and become an implementation of business strategy. The critical elements in process management in an enterprise are process monitoring and control. It is therefore essential to identify the Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) that are relevant to the analysed processes. Process monitoring can be performed at various levels of management, as well as from different perspectives: operational, financial, security, or maintenance. Some of the indicators known from other fields (such as personnel management, finance, or lean manufacturing) can be used in mining. However, the operational mining processes require a definition of specific indicators, especially in the context of increasing the productivity of mining machines and the possibility of using sensor data from machines and devices. The article presents a list of efficiency indicators adjusted to the specifics and particular needs of the mining industry resulting from the Industry 4.0 concept, as well as sustainable business performance. Using the conducted research and analysis, a list of indicators has been developed concerning person groups, which may serve as a benchmark for mining industry entities. The presented proposal is a result of work conducted in the SmartHUB project, which aims to create an Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) platform that will support process management in the mining industry.

This paper investigates the application of process mining methodology on the processes of a mobile asset in mining operations as a means of identifying opportunities to improve the operational efficiency of such. Industry 4.0 concepts with related extensive digitalization of industrial processes enable the acquisition of a huge amount of data that can and should be used for improving processes and decision-making. Utilizing this data requires appropriate data processing and data analysis schemes. In the processing and analysis stage, most often, a broad spectrum of data mining algorithms is applied. These are data-oriented methods and they are incapable of mapping the cause-effect relationships between process activities. However, in this scope, the importance of process-oriented analytical methods is increasingly emphasized, namely process mining (PM). PM techniques are a relatively new approach, which enable the construction of process models and their analytics based on data from enterprise IT systems (data are provided in the form of so-called event logs). The specific working environment and a multitude of sensors relevant for the working process causes the complexity of mining processes, especially in underground operations. Hence, an individual approach for event log preparation and gathering contextual information to be utilized in process analysis and improvement is mandatory. This paper describes the first application of the concept of PM to investigate the normal working process of a roof bolter, operating in an underground mine. By applying PM, the irregularities of the operational scheme of this mobile asset have been identified. Some irregularities were categorized as inefficiencies that are caused by either failure of machinery or suboptimal utilization of the same. In both cases, the results achieved by applying PM to the activity log of the mobile asset are relevant for identifying the potential for improving the efficiency of the overall working process.

Industry 4.0 and the Internet of Things are now very common concepts as solutions that can revolutionize the industry. Constant technological progress increases the possibilities of using computer tools and solutions to support processes in industry and production optimization. The use of the Internet of Things is particularly important in complex processes in mining, enabling the extraction of valuable information from data. The integration of physical facilities in the enterprise enables the digitization of production processes and the increase of efficiency and security. This article presents an overview of the selected internet of things platforms and analytical tools that can be used in industry, with particular emphasis on the mining sector. It is pointed out, that the number of suppliers of IoT technologies and analytical tools offering advanced data analytics services for industry is significant and constantly evolving. The aim of the article is to evaluate selected IoT solutions based on the following criteria: offering predictive analytics, implemented artificial intelligence (AI) or machine learning (ML) algorithms, a mining-oriented process approach, advanced data visualization, interoperability, real-time data capture, remote device management and cloud-based technology. The review was prepared to provide knowledge about IoT vendors operating on the market, as well as to indicate the functionalities that are the most popular among solutions.

Fast-growing methods of automatic data acquisition allow for collecting various types of data from the production process. This entails developing methods that are able to process vast amounts of data, providing generalised knowledge about the analysed process. Appropriate use of this knowledge can be the basis for decision-making, leading to more effective use of the company’s resources. This article presents the approach for data analysis aimed at determining the operating states of a wheel loader and the place where it operates based on the recorded data. For this purpose, we have used several methods, e.g., for clustering and classification, namely: DBSCAN, CART, C5.0. Our approach has allowed for the creation of decision rules that recognise the operating states of the machine. In this study, we have taken into account the GPS signal readings, and thanks to this, we have indicated the differences in machine operation within the designated states in the open pit and at the mine base area. In this paper, we present the characteristics of the selected clusters corresponding to the machine operation states and emphasise the differences in the context of the operation area. The knowledge obtained in this study allows for determining the states based on only a few selected most essential parameters, even without consideration of the coordinates of the machine’s workplace. Our approach enables a significant acceleration of subsequent analyses, e.g., analysis of the machine states structure, which may be helpful in the optimisation of its use.