Sandvik Digital Mining Technologies making impact across the value chain
Back in December 2021, Sandvik announced a bold strategy: to lead the industry development of underground sustainability and productivity solutions in electrification, automation, digitalisation and end-to-end optimisation.
One of the actions it took towards this was the creation of Digital Mining Technologies division within the Sandvik Mining business area, which, at that point, included Sandvik Mining automation solutions and the Newtrax telemetry and collision avoidance solutions.
Deswik, a provider of mine planning software, soon came under this umbrella when Sandvik acquired it in April 2022.
Today, Sandvik Digital Mining Technologies brings together a portfolio of solutions across the mining value chain from planning and design to optimisation and analytics, to autonomous execution. Deswik serves as a natural upstream entry point to this ecosystem, extending Sandvik’s reach into mine planning and enabling true end-to-end optimisation.
At this point, in terms of electrification, the company was very much leading the way. The acquisition of Artisan Vehicle Systems was embedded into its battery-electric thinking, with the company claiming it had the largest active battery-electric vehicle fleet running underground. It solidified this leadership position by launching the largest battery-electric underground truck, the TH665B, in 2022, and announcing it had a trial lined up in Western Australia.
When it came to automation, 22 years of AutoMine® installations had the company at the top of this market. The company had just celebrated its largest ever AutoMine deal with Codelco, too.
In terms of digitalisation, the addition of Deswik, which at that point came with more than 10,000 software licences, propelled the company up the mine planning and scheduling charts to – if not a leading position – at least a top-tier provider. This was complemented by Newtrax’s expanding market share.
End-to-end optimisation was the major area that needed addressing.
Four years ago, the company was limited in this process through a semi-siloed approach: some of its solutions were ‘open’ and talking to other parts of the value chain that Sandvik did not serve through its stated interoperability policy; others were only talking to platforms within Sandvik’s ecosystem.
This approach, to be fair to Sandvik, was common among the industry.
Having recently visited two of the cornerstone companies acquired as part of this ongoing drive, IM can now report that the Digital Mining Technologies division is making significant progress, with that end-to-end optimisation leadership position in sight.
The optimisation glue
“The Digital Mining Technologies division has now grown to support itself and is being measured against all other divisions within Sandvik Mining,” Riku Pulli, President of Sandvik’s Digital Mining Technologies, explained during a tour of Deswik and Universal Field Robots’ (UFR) facilities in Brisbane, Australia, in March.
“I see us as the ‘glue’ between many of the divisions, optimising the various equipment and solutions we provide the mining sector,” he said.
Pulli made this clear at the 2025 Capital Markets Day when he talked up a double-digit growth outlook to 2030 for the division, along with strong leverage for Sandvik equipment and the aftermarket business.
The slide that accompanied his remarks also reflected on a 30% compound annual growth rate from 2019-2024 – a period that included the acquisitions of Newtrax and Deswik, as well as Polymathian and UFR.
Where Newtrax allowed Sandvik Mining to further strengthen the company’s “leading position in areas related to automation and digitalisation”, Deswik increased the company’s upstream mining coverage, enabling opportunities for that all-important end-to-end optimisation.
The Polymathian solutions for automated decision making and process optimisation further complemented the Deswik offering, while the most recent addition – UFR – helped to “increase the addressable market for Sandvik by making AutoMine fully OEM agnostic and further strengthen…the market position of Sandvik AutoMine”.
Talking about Deswik, specifically, Pulli reflected on how the acquisition had opened a “new area in the mining value chain” Sandvik was not previously serving.
This part of the mining value chain is highly sought after, as observers and investors would have taken note of with recent high-profile acquisitions of RPMGlobal and Micromine by Caterpillar and Weir, respectively.
Deswik’s platforms, which span mine design, scheduling and planning, are now in use at over 1,330 sites across the globe. These software solutions are complemented by more than 200 mining engineers that act as consultants for the business, who interact with the software developers to ensure solutions are customer driven and have a basis in reality.
Andrew Pyne, CEO of Deswik, told IM: “Consultancy is a big part of the value proposition we deliver to our customers. This varies from training services to complex studies where we will assist clients with decisions on how to get the optimal outcomes from their operations.”
In many cases, the company works together with customers to support them in improving their skills and efficiencies using its tools.
“We simply won’t recommend a solution to our clients if the value proposition does not stack up for their operation,” Pyne said. “Our engineers take pride in building these types of relationships with our clients.”
Sandvik has respected this bond in the four years since it acquired the company, keeping the business at arm’s length to ensure client-driven relationships are not affected.
It has also broadened the Deswik client base by, in some instances, converting OptiMine Scheduler customers to the Deswik OPS mine scheduling software, as Elen Toodu, Director, Business Development for Sandvik’s Digital Mining Technologies, explained. “During the renewal process, we have recommended Deswik OPS to many of them, acknowledging that it is a superior product for many of the applications we serve,” she said.
This process showcases Sandvik’s appreciation for not only the solutions Deswik offers, but also its agnostic and interoperable approach to product development.
Removing the integration friction
Toodu said Deswik OEM-agnostic solutions provide Sandvik with a “closed loop” from mine design, to operations, connected fleet and then autonomous execution.
This is best seen in some of the integrations with the AutoMine platform – integrations that enable customers to focus strictly on manual or remote loading efficiencies rather than planning decisions, according to Toodu.
For instance, Deswik ORB can now review the MCS (Mission Control System) load point availability to determine available loading areas (eg manual or remote permissions). This sees AutoMine-enabled machines receive optimised draw orders directly in MCS from Deswik ORB, with ORB receiving real-time cycle data to progress draw orders and issue subsequent orders without delay when the previous task is complete.
Prior to this integration, it was common practice to sequentially work through a list of orders without consideration of the urgency and priorities.
Toodu explained: “This replaces a lot of manual tasks, which caused unnecessary delays, with there being an obvious progression between orders automatically. It also allows the execution against strategic objectives, rather than a static start of shift orders.”
This closed loop works not only in the Sandvik sphere, but also in the wider vendor ecosystem.
For example, at a mine in Indonesia, the company has integrated Deswik ORB, the world’s first highly automated short interval control solution for production block cave dispatch, with Caterpillar’s MineStar system that share draw order information, drawpoint status information and cycle data. “This integration means that no manual data entry is required, enabling continuous optimised dispatch of equipment,” Pyne explained.
This example also embodies the ‘open’ philosophy that underwrites Deswik solutions.
“Deswik is customer-requirements driven, so we will integrate with other OEMs when requested by our customers,” Pyne said. “Sandvik supports this OEM-agnostic approach as it is pragmatic.”
And while Deswik’s solutions are wide ranging, they do not cover the complete mining value chain, meaning it has had to ‘play nice’ with the solution providers filling other gaps in this chain for some time. Pyne explained: “Some of our peers in this space generate geological information, as well as provide the mine planning and scheduling piece. We, however, take data from companies modelling orebodies and design mines for the most optimal extraction outcome.”
While the injection of this orebody modelling data into Deswik solutions is relatively easy, Pyne admits the reconciliation of downstream and upstream data does come with “friction”.
“That is part of what we are working on at the moment: the ability to remove that friction and further improve the value chain integration,” he said.
Coupling capability with ease of use
One would expect this process to be helped by an ongoing plan to simplify the structure of Deswik solutions, which have historically been built for experienced mine planners and engineers.
The recently launched Deswik NOVA product for open-pit planning offers a glimpse into how its wider software solutions could function in the future. Amanda Forbes, Principal Mining Consultant at Deswik, explained: “NOVA simplifies complex processes by providing a guided workflow tailored to open-pit metals. This reduced complexity helps users navigate the mine planning process more effectively, regardless of their experience level.”
More broadly, Glenn Wylde, Chief Technology Officer, said: “Deswik is known as a very sophisticated suite of software tools, but we realise that we need to couple capability of the tool with ease of use. Specifically, we are identifying where our technology can be improved to support more efficient workflows.”
One of these areas is underground drill and blast. Here the company is looking to seamlessly integrate drill plans built on Deswik UGDB with the interface on Sandvik drill rigs to enable customers to avoid manual file transfer.
On surface, it also has aims to take measure while drilling data from Sandvik equipment and display this either on the My Sandvik Onsite interface or DeswikCAD to provide additional information for blast engineers to assist with charge design.
A cloud migration will also help improve workflows, the company believes, with its Deswik.MDM product recently becoming the first such solution available in a desktop alternative.
These are just some of the improvements the company is working on, all of which are predicated on providing additional value to customers, while also showcasing that Deswik provides open and agnostic solutions for the entire mining space – not just the underground mining niche many users know the company for.
Pulli concluded: “Adding Deswik to our portfolio was essential for our digital strategy. It had proven delivery capabilities prior to the acquisition, and it has since gone to prove these again under Sandvik ownership.
“With the additions of Polymathian and UFR since, we have a solid platform across the mining value chain, as well as an open offering that ensures we can serve modern mining operations across the globe.”
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