Technology advances in the mining sector
Mining — where scale and complexity often slow the pace of change — could benefit from investments in technology
At a mine in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) — where mining is often associated with child labour and the funding of warlords — technology has been recruited for the fight against conflict minerals.A new system developed by Berlin-based supply-chain company RCS Global audits the movement of tantalum, a rare metal used in smartphones.According to Reuters, a government official puts a barcoded tag on a sack of ore that is rich in tantalum.Using a handheld device, the official scans the barcode, uploading data into the cloud about the bag’s weight, when it was tagged and by whom.The system has the potential to offer assurance to people buying smartphones and other products that the metals used in their manufacture are ethically sourced.This is of particular interest to tech companies, such as Apple and Samsung, to carmakers and to the industry regulators that are putting pressure on companies to prove their supply chains are clean.The RCS Global system brings a fairly simple ...
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