The 5th Polish Mining Congress was held on September 6-7 at the International Congress Center in Katowice. The congress’s main aim was to discuss the current problems of the mining industry and the challenges facing the mining industry in the 21st century. The event was also combined with one of the International Fair EXPO KATOWICE- Mining, Power Industry, and Metallurgy Fair. The congress was a unique opportunity to observe and listen to compelling talks in the field of the mining industry. At the 5th Polish Mining Congress, our project was represented by Adam Wróblewski, Radosław Zimroz, and Aleksandra Banasiewicz.

ECHO is an example of a project which perfectly relates to the topic of this year’s congress “Mining industry of the 21st century – how to search for, extract and process mineral and energy resources while protecting the climate and the environment?”.

Our team presented achievements and progress of the ongoing project in the presentation “Electrical Computerised Hammering Operator (ECHO) – a new solution for crushing blasted materials in the mining industry”.

We introduced the participants to the basics and specificity of the ECHO project. In our presentation, we also showed primary differences between electrical, programmable, breaker hammer (LEH) which is capable of boosting the fragmentation process and decreasing environmental impact, and hydraulic breaker hammers, projects’ aims, and our project partners.

The participants of the event were LEKATECH, KGHM Polska Miedź S.A., MNLT Innovations P.C., ISMC and Wroclaw University of Science and Technology.

The first day of the meeting on July 12 started with a welcome coffee at Radalla Clubhouse. LEKATECH officially opened the event at 9:00 a.m., presenting the program and schedule. Then the participants were transported from Radalla to Lekatech’s premises. During this trip, participants visited the Lekatech headquarter with workshop and met the Lekatech team. Moreover, an electric hammer was demonstrated, a pilot version was introduced and a factory test facility was visited. 

At 1:00 p.m., KGHM gave a 30-minute speech at which a presentation on the current status and main requirements was presented. Subsequently, ISMC and WUST discussed the Communication and Dissemination Strategy. They showed a presentation of main finding of C&D strategy deliverable and catalogue of communication.

At 2 p.m. there were at 2 workshops with breakout sessions. The first concerned the pilot requirements of KGHM. The aim was to create a common understanding of the technical, functional and other relevant requirements for LEH pilotage in Poland. The second was about implementing a communication and dissemination strategy. The goals were: create a roadmap and select relevant dissemination events (both academic as well for industrial customers) and also create a hands-on plan to address KPIs and milestones in regard to C&D. At the end of the workshops, each group leader presented the main conclusions reached in the discussion.

The official part of the meeting ended at 4:30 PM. After that partisipants had the oportunity to intergrate during the evening using the log cabin sauna, swimming pools and other amenities offered by Radalla Resort.

The second day of the consortium meeting began at 9:00 with a speech by Lekatech and MNLT. They presented an overview of the main points about the Quality Assurance Handbook and the Risk Management Plan. 

After an hour’s speech, it was time for a market research workshop. The aim of the course was to better understand the market requirements and define the roles in market research and GTM tasks. The workshop was divided into two parts. The first part was brainstorming and market intelligence sources definition among the consortium members. The second part of the workshop focused on collecting and discussing available market information from members: commercial and other (regulatory, social, environmental, political, economic, technological). 

Evaluation tools and methods were discussed in the next part of the meeting. Methods and tools for data collection were defined, the technique of using the tools and methods of the pilot evaluation was defined, and methods for analysing the obtained results were also specified.

At 14:00 MNLT showed the presentation on the approach of LCA. Among other things, it presents what activities will be carried out and how to measure and validate the results.

The project management meeting started at 15:00. The status and future plans for the ECHO project were discussed. The results so far have been reviewed and activities planned for the coming period.

The official event ended at 4 p.m. At the end of the ECHO consortium meeting, it was possible to take part in the attractions offered by Radalla Resort, such as nature trail, golfing, public beach, paddle boarding, fishing.

We would like to thank the LekaTech team for their hospitality and organization of fruitful workshop.

During the first months of the ECHO project Lekatech focused on getting to know their partners WUST, KGHM, MNLT and ISMC better, in order to get good collaboration flowing. Now it was time to boost dissemination activities and take part in events that offer good opportunities to get to know the EIT RM network better as well as interact with global players.

From 23 – 25 of May, Rob Moonen and Antti Anttila (CEO Lekatech) participated for 3 days in the EIT RM Summit in Berlin, where they attended the main conference, but in particular visited the Venture Forum to interact with startups, global OEMs, investors and end-users. While the pitches and presentations were interesting, the main value of this trip came in terms of interacting with people. Rob and Antti could clearly see the interest and focus of the green and digital transformation in the industry, and got confirmation from multiple players about the need for our solution.

From 14 – 16 of June they participated also in the Euro Mine Expo, after receiving an invitation from their EIT RM business developer, in the pitching session as well as the EIT RM booth. The trade fair gave them another opportunity to especially interact with industrial players while at the same time receiving more feedback on the challenges that mining operators are facing. For example currently mines are facing regularly during scaling operations the issue that hydraulic hoses are breaking, the need for extensive ventilation due to combustion engines, and the inefficiency of the hammering process. With their solution they are taking away those pains. On the second day of the event, Antti pitched Lekatech as part of EIT RM Exhibitor Innovation Forum.

See the link to the video below, which provides a good overview of our solution.

Exhibitor Innovation Forum 2022 Wednesday, June 15 – YouTube

All in all both events were very valuable. Besides raising awareness of the product and company it provided with multiple contacts of organizations with which various forms of collaboration are currently being explored.

This annual conference brings together a wide group of specialists from the academic, research, and industrial environment. This unique event creates an excellent opportunity to present the concepts of our project in the field of open-pit mining of mineral resources, both to the group of leading mining machinery and equipment providers and end-users. This year the conference attracted nearly 300 participants.