Agnico Eagle – Tracking On-site Material Flows with Tracking Cloud®

Gold mining with 60 years of experience

The Toronto-based mining company Agnico Eagle has been producing precious metals since 1957. The company is currently running operations in Canada, Mexico, and Finland and employs over 8000 people with a revenue of 2,2 billion USD (2018). The name "Agnico" is derived from the periodic table of elements using the symbols for silver (Ag), nickel (Ni) and cobalt (Co).

In January 2020, Agnico Eagle Finland started a partnership with Bluugo to track the incoming construction material flows at their Kittilä Mine.

The Problem

• Lack of visibility over incoming construction material shipments and their statuses
• Lack of visibility over on-site inventory
• Delayed construction schedules due to missing materials
• The underground mine is a highly challenging operating environment for digital solutions

The Solution

• A digital service for tracking the material flow of incoming operation-critical materials in Agnico Eagle’s Kittilä Mine, powered by Bluugo’s Tracking Cloud® platform
• The solution utilizes optical identification technologies to track incoming material shipments from various suppliers

The Results

• Real-time overview of materials on site and order statuses
• Fewer delays through preventive alerts of missing materials
• Invoices accepted based on actualized deliveries
• Less capital tied to material orders
• Real-time information sharing for all stakeholders

Tracking operation-critical material flows with Tracking Cloud®

Agnico Eagle’s Kittilä mine in northern Finland is the largest primary gold producer in Europe. The mine achieved commercial production on May 1, 2009, becoming Agnico Eagle’s first mine outside of Canada.

In 2018, Agnico Eagle announced an expansion investment at the Kittilä mine of approximately 160 million euros – a 1,044-metre-deep shaft will be built in the mine. At the same time, the processing plant’s processing capacity will be raised from the current 1.6 million tonnes per annum to 2.0 million tonnes per annum.

A construction project of this magnitude naturally requires massive amounts of materials. The challenging operating environment makes it even more crucial to have all the required materials at the right place at the right time. To achieve this, Agnico Eagle decided to deploy Bluugo’s Tracking Cloud® platform to track the incoming construction material flows at the Kittilä mine.

The solution utilizes optical identification technology to track incoming material shipments from various suppliers. When a shipment arrives at the site, its contents are scanned and logged directly into the Tracking Cloud® service. The collected data is shared in real-time to provide transparency for all stakeholders.

Users can monitor the status of each shipment and easily find specific materials from the various warehouse areas at the Kittilä site. The real-time overview enables workers to make sure all required construction materials are in the right place at the right time. If any required materials are missing or arriving behind schedule, automated alerts are sent through the Tracking Cloud® service.

Challenging operating environment & Offline functionality

Mines are typically a challenging operating environment for any digital solution. Remote locations and underground operations can make it challenging to maintain stable data connections.

Tracking Cloud® tackles these challenges with its full offline capabilities – it can be used even when no internet connection is available. Automatic synchronization is done when a connection is re-established.

Read more about the offline capabilities in our blog “Offline Functionality enables business digitalization without stable data connections”.