Software for mining and mining suppliers
The mining vertical has two worlds, and we work both. In Chubut the permitted mining is non-metallic (aggregates, clays, kaolin, bentonite, porphyry): quarry SMEs with management on paper. And in Patagonia's metal-mining provinces (Santa Cruz, Río Negro) there is a fabric of service suppliers that need to get mine entry, fleet and cost per contract in order. In both cases, the data layer does not exist.
Two worlds, one same gap
Talking about mining in Chubut demands precision, because the legal framework defines the market.
- In Chubut, open-pit metal mining is banned by provincial law, and changing it is not on the agenda. The mining that does operate is non-metallic: aggregate and application-rock quarries, clays, kaolin, bentonite, porphyry, gypsum. It employs hundreds of families directly and supplies construction and industry.
- Around it, Patagonia does have active metal mining: Santa Cruz (gold and silver) and Río Negro, with an ecosystem of service suppliers and programs pushing to contract local SMEs.
- On the Chubut plateau a frontier is opening: uranium, in advanced exploration. It does not yet generate a supplier chain, but if it advances, it will.
The three share the same gap: there is no management software designed for the mining business at SME scale, nor a data or AI consultancy positioned in the sector. The category is vacant.
Where a mining operation loses money
The pain changes by world, but the pattern is the same: decisions are made on aggregated, late information.
- The quarry does not know its real cost per tonne. Production per face, fuel, equipment hours and maintenance live split across notebooks and spreadsheets. Without that number, aggregate price is set by intuition.
- Equipment breaks with no warning. An idle crusher or shovel stops the whole face, and breakdown maintenance always arrives late.
- The remote pit is a security hole. Fuel and material theft in unmanned locations is a loss that often is not even measured.
- The mining supplier loses hours on mine entry. Staff, equipment and insurance clearances each site demands, loaded by hand, with gate rejections that leave a crew outside.
- Nobody knows margin per contract. Like any service supplier: without cost charged per contract and per machine, profitability is a month-end surprise.
Our approach: small tickets, measurable results
We do not sell a mining ERP from another planet. We build scoped, fixed-price modules that pay for themselves with what they put in order:
- Cost per tonne and tonnage per face. The dashboard that gives the quarry owner the real number per face and per machine. It is a business conversation, not a systems one.
- Mine entry for the supplier. A file of clearances, insurance and staff with self-alerting expiry dates, to stop losing hours and having a crew stopped at the gate.
- Fleet and equipment control. GPS, usage hours, fuel and maintenance on real condition, not by calendar.
- Online surveillance of pits and tool store. The cheapest entry project with the most visible ROI in remote operations.
- Margin per contract. For the service supplier, the same order we solve in oil and gas: cost charged where it happens and decisions on the real number.
Your operation defines the order: start with the module that concentrates the most cash or the most risk.
Five more solutions: sensors, cameras and AI on top of the operation
Every physical pain in mining (the material, the equipment, the remote pit, site entry) is also a data problem. These five solutions bring the technology layer the sector still lacks down to mid-size company scale, and each one is implemented as a scoped module, field installation included: cameras, sensors, towers and connectivity in remote areas are set up by our technical crew.
Fleet telemetry and tonnage per face
GPS and telemetry on trucks, shovels and loaders: position, haul cycles, fuel and equipment hours. On top of that data, tonnage extracted per face and real cost per tonne, with alerts for slow cycles or idle equipment. Production stops being estimated at month end: it is measured, face by face.
Computer vision for granulometry and grading
A camera over the belt or the pile measures material granulometry in real time: size distribution, out-of-spec fines and oversize to re-crush. Aggregate quality stops being checked by manual sampling and is measured continuously, batch by batch.
IoT monitoring and predictive maintenance
Vibration and temperature sensors on crushers, belts and motors, continuously logged. Maintenance stops being by calendar or by breakdown: when vibration drifts out of range, the alert comes before the failure. An idle crusher stops the whole face, and costs far more than the sensor that would have anticipated it.
Online surveillance of pits, tool store and fuel
Connected cameras with AI detection over pits, tool stores and fuel tanks, often in remote, unmanned locations. After-hours intrusion, loading and unloading of material, equipment movement, all seen from the phone and recorded on video. Fuel and material theft stops being an invisible hole.
Site entry and cost per contract
For the mining-services supplier: the staff, equipment and insurance clearance that site entry demands, joined to the costing of each contract. The system builds the entry file from documentation with its expiry dates, and shows which contract and which machine leaves margin. Fewer rejections at the gate, and decisions on the real number.
The bottlenecks, as data verticals
Beyond each face's operation, Patagonian mining has physical bottlenecks (distance, water, energy, beds) that are, at bottom, resource-allocation problems. And an allocation problem is a data problem. Each one can become a measurable vertical:
- Long-distance logistics. Ore, concentrate and aggregates travel hundreds of kilometers over Patagonian roads. Optimizing fleet, rotation and sequencing with cost per tonne-kilometer in view is direct money: every badly built trip is paid in fuel and hours.
- Water. On the arid plateau, water is a critical and increasingly regulated resource. Measuring consumption per process, controlling reuse and keeping the curve on record turns an environmental obligation into a management figure, and into the evidence the regulator asks for.
- Energy at remote sites. Many operations generate their own off-grid power (diesel, solar or hybrid). Monitoring consumption and energy cost per tonne, and spotting where it is wasted, is among the largest and least-watched savings.
- Camps and shifts. Staff rotate on long regimes, with on-site lodging and scheduled transfers. Bed occupancy and relief logistics is pure sequencing: a dashboard turns idle beds and half-full trips into savings.
- Critical supplies and remote tool store. Far from everything, a missing spare stops the face. Predicting the shortage before the stoppage, from each machine's real consumption, is the difference between an on-time order and a machine waiting for a part.
Every physical bottleneck is a data vertical that can be measured, and whoever measures first decides better. You enter through the one that moves the most money or covers the most risk in your operation, with a concrete, scoped case.
What we automate in mining
Custom software
Tonnage per face, cost per tonne, mine entry and dashboards built around how your operation works.
See more →Financial order
Cost per tonne and margin per contract, with costs charged where they happen.
See more →Staff attendance
Geolocated clock-in at the quarry or site, hours per crew and personnel files with expiry dates.
See more →