At least half of heavy machinery users within the global mining industry still rely primarily on manual supply chain management tools, with 40% still using manual tools for operational planning, Wits Mining Institute’s Professor Glen Nwaila has said. “So even if the automation is partially achieved, you will find that the plant is heavily automated but, in the mine, only a portion of it is actually automated,” he said, speaking at the Mind Shift conference hosted by Mine Equipment Manufacturers of South Africa, in Sandton, on May 15.