Sandvik technology priorities: automation and data integration for mine planners
Reviewed by Joe Ashwell

First reported on Australian Mining
30 Second Briefing
Sandvik Australia, New Zealand and Papua New Guinea sales area vice president Craig Johnston says Australia’s highly competitive mining market is driving demand for proven underground loaders and drills backed by strong aftermarket support and expanding digital and automation platforms. Johnston points to mine-wide automation architectures, data-driven fleet optimisation and remote monitoring as priorities, with Sandvik integrating these across existing equipment fleets rather than only new capital projects. For geotechnical and operations teams, the message is tighter linkage between equipment health data, production KPIs and long-term asset planning.
Technical Brief
- Sandvik is prioritising interoperable mine-wide automation architectures that can sit above mixed-vendor fleets.
- Remote operation centres are being configured to supervise multiple underground loaders and drills from surface control rooms.
- Condition monitoring data from Sandvik loaders and drills is being streamed continuously for predictive maintenance scheduling.
- OEM digital platforms are being used to track safety-critical alarms, interlocks and emergency-stop events fleet-wide.
- Retrofit automation kits are being engineered for legacy underground equipment to avoid safety gaps between old and new units.
- Data from equipment health systems is being integrated with mine planning tools to flag geotechnical or ground-condition related stoppages.
- For other underground operations, similar OEM-integrated automation stacks could simplify compliance with site-specific safety management systems.
Our Take
Sandvik Australia’s technology priorities sit within a broader push in our database towards integrated digital ecosystems in Australian mining, as flagged in the 27 August 2026 piece on AI, automation, connected data and cybersecurity across pits and plants.
With no specific commodities tied to this article, Sandvik’s strategy appears aimed at cross-commodity deployments in Australia, New Zealand and Papua New Guinea, which in our Mining corpus often gives OEMs more resilience to cyclical swings in any single resource sector.
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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