AVA’s solution was shaped by the founders’ knowledge of the mining industry and understanding of the challenges faced in the production environment
MASTER DRILLING ACQUIRES STAKE IN AVA SOLUTIONS. (Credit: Khusen Rustamov from Pixabay.)
Master Drilling Group Limited (“Master Drilling”, JSE:MDI), a global leader in providing drilling services to the mining, civil engineering and building construction sectors, today announced a 40% investment in AVA Solutions (“AVA”) a specialist in data-driven mining fleet management solutions.
Founded in 2015 by Anton Fourie and Jason van der Watt, two engineers with over 25 years of combined mining industry experience, AVA has achieved significant recognition in South Africa by creating a captive market for its disruptive, hardware agnostic and quick to implement Software as a Service (SaaS) model at much lower costs to other solutions. Currently, AVA’s unique digital platform analyses and tracks more than 1800 load & haul vehicles across 28 different sites in 5 countries for a range of blue-chip companies.
Danie Pretorius, Master Drilling CEO, said: “Technological innovation is a key priority for Master Drilling as we continue to support our clients to move down the cost curve, optimise their operations and increase safety. Our investment in AVA is aligned with our strategy to diversify our services and invest in opportunities in our existing target markets with low capital requirements and short return cycles. We believe that AVA has great growth potential, and we look forward to supporting them through our existing client base and networks internationally.”
AVA’s solution was shaped by the founders’ knowledge of the mining industry and understanding of the challenges faced in the production environment. By condensing multiple technology layers into a single interface, AVA ensures that equipment operates at its optimal level of performance with little to no additional capital investment.
Traditionally, digital fleet management solutions were only accessible to larger mines, as the costs and capital outlay associated with the solutions were too high. AVA disrupted the category with a solution that is accessible for all mines and asset sizes by simplifying traditionally difficult systems to implement and maintain. Through this offering, the potential market for AVA is vast as many mines that currently struggle to get real value from their digital initiatives are now able to deploy a real end-to-end solution.
Commenting on the partnership, Anton Fourie, co-founder and COO of AVA, said: “We have grown exponentially from a start-up five years ago to a recognised player with a proven technology for the mining industry. We have a clear strategy to provide an end-to-end solution that goes beyond the load and haul environment and across the entire mining value chain. Through our partnership with Master Drilling, we are gaining access to extensive experience that will support the ongoing development of our platform and a footprint that will accelerate our international expansion.”
Understanding the Internet of Things, AVA is able to create vast digital networks that drive communication between multiple pieces of hardware in a mine, providing real time data that empowers operations teams to make decisions that optimise mining operations. The next developments for AVA’s scalable platform will focus on new elements including scheduling and logistics that will enable mines to not only improve productivity of the load and haul value chain but of the entire mining value chain.
Source: Company Press Release