PROmining

Development of a platform to improve the forecasting capability and increase the utilization of SMEs in the German quarrying industry

Motivation

Digitization is already an important part of corporate strategy in companies in highly developed industries. In addition to the emergence of new, innovative products and services, digitization has made a fundamental contribution to changing the operating principles of markets. A fundamental and main of this development is the platform economy.

The German quarrying industry is characterized by a large number of SMEs operating on regional markets and is subjected to fluctuating capacity utilization due to economic and seasonal demand. The implementation of a customized digital platform solution, coupled with the specific enablement of appropriate data management, can help the quarrying industry to improve forecasting capability and capacity utilization at both the plant and enterprise level.

Approach

The PROmining research project addresses the digitization of the German quarrying industry. The research objective is to create a digital platform that enables companies in the quarrying industry to respond better to fluctuating demand by means of increased forecasting capability. The specific development and implementation of digitalization in form of a platform economy offers indirect and direct benefits to the quarrying industry.

In the PROmining research project, the research institutes MRE and FIR are working closely with companies and associations in the quarrying sector. The competences of both research institutions are combined in order to contribute results and experiences from research priorities and project processing to the PROmining project.

Work packages

The PROmining project is thematically divided into five work packages:

• Benefit and potential analysis of a platform for SMEs in the German quarrying industry.
• Identification of data sources and support of SMEs to improve their own data management.
• Development of a long-term operator concept and identification of possible services to improve forecasting capability and capacity utilization.
• Company-neutral development and realization of a demonstrator to improve forecasting capability and increase capacity utilization.
• Company-specific implementation, testing and validation of the platform solution as well as support of the companies during the transformation process.