ABSTRACT
The mining industry has a long history of automation but is, in general, less developed in comparison to other industries. Several aspects of mining precludes or complicates utilization of new technology and high levels of automation. The kind of automation implied by digitalization and other high-tech advances is quite recent. The implication for safety, ergonomics, and workplace attractiveness is that these secondary and tertiary tasks may be unsafe, un-ergonomic, and unattractive. The effects observed in the study need not be specific to this particular development; an important finding regarded the change in required qualification and the resistance generated by the change. The majority of the visions of future mining includes automation in one form or another. Most envision highly automated and even autonomous operations. The other technology that was investigated in the study was semi-automated chargers.
