Technological improvements had boosted productivity 40% over the past three years and a further 40% could be delivered by 2020, Anglo American CEO Mark Cutifani said on Monday. "Since we started thinking about our business in a very different way, our productivity is up by around 40% since 2013," Cutifani told the Mining Indaba. "I would expect to see the same level of improvement from where we are today to be delivered through our current programmes by 2020." Anglo was focused on the smart use of data and "integrated systems thinking" to cut maintenance spending and to reduce safety risks. "We are using advanced analytics to interrogate existing data and to estimate the probability of component failure in some of our most important mining equipment," he said. Miners have been focused on cutting costs and boosting productivity in recent years as metal prices slumped, hitting multiyear lows early in 2016 and squeezing profits. Anglo reported a sharp production fall at its Los Bronces...

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