Mining, Mineral and Metal Processing 2021 - Now a Virtual Conference (*) 

(*) March 10th, 2021 - The organizers have decided that the MMM 2021 will be a fully online conference. We regret that due to the Covid-19 situation we have been forced to change the planned hybrid meeting into a full online event.

Plenary Lectures

  • “Process Monitoring for Actionable Advisories in Mineral Processing : Theory and Practice ” - Prof. Lidia AURET
    Product Manager - Process Monitoring - Stone Three - South Africa

  • “Closed-Loop Approaches for Mineral Research Extraction” - Prof. Dr.-Ing. Jörg Benndorf
    Faculty for Geoscience, Geotechnics and Mining - Reiche Zeche - Germany

Prof. Dr.-Ing. Jörg Benndorf is a mining professional with 10 years’ industry and 10 years’ academic experience. In industry, he worked as project leader and project manager for large investment projects, mine planning engineer, operational engineer and consultant in Germany, Australia, USA, and Jamaica. His interests include process optimization along the whole mining value chain from exploration to processing. From 2012 to 2016 he was Assistant Professor of Resource Engineering at the Delft University of Technology in the Netherlands. His research focuses on methods of geomonitoring and real-time data integration, geostatistical modeling and geological risk assessment. Since 2016 he has held a full professorship in Geomonitoring and Mine Surveying at the University of Mining and Technology “Bergakademie” Freiberg in Germany. Dr. Benndorf graduated from the same university, and he holds a PhD in Mining Geostatistics from TU Clausthal in Germany and an MPhil in Mining Engineering from the University of Queensland in Australia.

Prof. Lidia Auret is the product manager: process monitoring and diagnostics at Stone Three (a digital productivity and workplace safety solutions provider) and an extraordinary associate professor at the Department of Process Engineering at Stellenbosch University. Lidia works with a team of process and industrial engineers with data science expertise at Stone Three Digital which delivers remote monitoring and diagnosis services to the mining industry, as well as industrial process solutions research, design and pilot projects. Lidia's research interest is data analytics and machine learning methods applied to the challenge of process monitoring in industrial processes, specifically in mineral processing systems. Through collaborating with industrial funders (e.g. Anglo American Platinum, Glencore) and industry-state partnerships (e.g. SAMMRI – South African Mines to Metals Research Initiative), her research has focussed on the application of data analytics to industrial processes – a vital component of Industry 4.0 technologies. Lidia is the author of 40 peer-reviewed publications, including papers in leading international journals such as Journal of Process Control and Chemometrics and Intelligent Laboratory Systems, as well as peer-reviewed international conference contributions, including for IEEE (Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers) and IFAC (International Federation of Automatic Control) conferences. Lidia has successfully mentored one postdoctoral fellow, supervised 2 PhD and 21 master's students, and currently supervises 2 PhD and 2 master's students. Lidia serves on the executive committee of the South African Council for Automation and Control as well as on IFAC TC 6.2 (where she is co-chair: publications). Lidia was the co-chair of the national organizing committee for the 18th IFAC Symposium on Control, Optimization and Automation in Mining, Mineral and Metal Processing.