Sandvik Mining mechanical cutting: automation roadmap and design notes for engineers
Reviewed by Joe Ashwell

First reported on International Mining – News
30 Second Briefing
Sandvik’s mechanical cutting division is expanding beyond coal with grid-connected roadheaders, bolter miners and borer miners, a 430-unit active fleet, and new hard-rock systems such as the second-generation MX650 and the MN330 narrow reef production unit for Anglo American. Automation and digitalisation are advancing through CUTRONIC®, the Roadheader Guidance System, a cloud-based maintenance platform outside MySandvik, and a fully automated bolting process on the MB672, with teleremote capability targeted across all machines by 2030 and full automation by 2040. At BHP’s Jansen potash project in Canada, each mining system pairs a cable-powered MF460 borer miner with a PO140 extendable conveyor, cutting 6.3 m-wide, up to 4.36 m-high headings with 2 km cuts to form approximately 12 m-wide rooms.
Technical Brief
- Several Sandvik mechanical cutting units from the 1970s remain in production, far exceeding the typical 15‑year rebuild cycle.
- The division maintains an active fleet of 430 machines, supported by services and parts hubs across 10 global locations.
- 2024 revenue is already diversified, with 9% from industrial minerals and 13% from hard-rock and tunnelling.
- All mechanical cutting products are grid-connected, with EU Stage V/US EPA Tier 4 Final diesel only for untethered tramming.
- Biodiesel and potential battery-electric drivetrains are being evaluated specifically for development headings where tethering is impractical.
- A standalone, cloud-based digital platform outside MySandvik is configured for remote production and maintenance data capture and analysis.
- Advanced maintenance licences envisage Sandvik experts remotely interpreting machine data to schedule interventions and optimise spare parts ordering.
- A recent Australian tunnelling project trialled combined Roadheader Guidance System and CUTRONIC® in teleremote mode for automatic profile cutting.
Our Take
Sandvik’s target for all machines to be teleremote-capable by 2030 and fully automatable by 2040 aligns with survey findings in our 26 November 2025 Sandvik coverage, where young mining engineers ranked automation and digitalisation as key job attractors; this suggests the Zeltweg product roadmap is also a talent strategy lever.
An active fleet of 430 machines supported from just 10 service locations implies Sandvik Mining is optimising around high-availability, rebuild-centric support rather than dense local depots, which can be attractive for large, concentrated operations like BHP’s Jansen potash project but less so for fragmented small mines.
With industrial minerals and hard rock (including tunnelling) together contributing over one-fifth of Sandvik’s 2024 revenue, the strong presence of coal and industrial minerals items in our mining database suggests the Zeltweg bolter-miner line is positioned to benefit from relatively steady demand even if thermal coal weakens, via potash, tunnelling and other non-energy applications.
Prepared by collating external sources, AI-assisted tools, and Geomechanics.io’s proprietary mining database, then reviewed for technical accuracy & edited by our geotechnical team.
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