Today at the press conference in the Government, Vice Minister for Investments and Development, Timur Toktabayev, spoke about the digital improvement of Kazakhstan's industry.

According to Timur Toktabayev, MID RK is continuing the work on digitization of Kazakhstan's industry. A number of promising projects is under implementation. One of them is the Digital Mine, which is currently being implemented in pilot mode jointly with Altynalmas. AK Altynalmas JSC is one of the leading gold producers in Kazakhstan — it produces more than 4 thousand tons of gold per year.

"It is planned to implement a full cycle of automation, digitalization of production, systematic arrangement of business processes based on information technology," said Vice Minister Timur Toktabayev.

The essence of the Digital Mine project is that many devices are equipped with special sensors. For example, when using these sensors on vehicles for transportation of ore, the cost of fuel will be reduced. In mine equipment, reductions due to a lack of downtime, more efficient use of existing equipment, reach more than 55%.

So, for today at realization of the first stage of Altynalmas it was possible to reduce costs by 15-20%.

"This is the main goal pursued by business today, through the use of new technologies, to optimize processes, reduce the cost and improve its competitive advantages," Timur Toktabayev said.

Answering the question of the correspondent of PrimeMinister.kz about the digitization of the extractive sector, Timur Toktabayev noted that today in the field of innovation and digitalization there are new growth points around the world.

"New unexpected technologies arise all the time. Therefore, now it is very difficult to plan for big prospects. But it is clear that we all need to use the opportunities of new technologies in the economic sectors. Altynalmas is one of the first companies that realized this," Timur Toktabayev said.

The Vice Minister also added that at the moment, in the mining and metallurgical complex of Kazakhstan, such breakthrough projects as 3D-visualization of processes, industrial Internet in mines, planning using artificial intelligence and modeling in geology, etc. are being introduced.

For reference: The main achievement of Altynalmas is the creation of modern high-tech mining and processing industries of the international class on the basis of the reserves of the Akbakai, Beskempir and Karyernoye fields in the Akbakai district of the Zhambyl region, and the Pustynnoye deposit in the Aktogay district of the Karaganda region.

Today, more than 1 500 people work in the production branches of Altynalmas and about 100 units of mining equipment are employed. The final product of the company is gold bullion Dore (over 3.5 tons in 2016, 4.2 tons in 2017).

Today, the company has reached a certain level of automation development: basic systems of medium- and long-term production planning have been introduced using such recognized in the mining industry software products as Surpac and MineSched.

In addition, an underground and ground positioning system has been introduced – video surveillance sensors, a GPS monitoring system that monitors fuel consumption and routes of equipment and personnel, as well as plates for real-time monitoring of geology production processes. Processes of processing at gold recovery factories are controlled by Scada systems.

Upper-level management of production, finance, logistics and procurement is provided by the ERP system implemented on the basis of Microsoft Dynamics Axapta. The correct organization of work and repairs, based on the analysis of daily statistical reports from the resource management system, increased the utilization rate of loading equipment and mine equipment from 55% to 76%. The implementation of the initiative to control the consumption of fuel and lubricant materials has resulted in savings in fuel costs by 21% per year.

Over the next three to four years, Altynalmas intends to create an integrated information environment in which, in real time, it is possible to track key business processes of the company and make informed decisions.