Master Drilling Group Ltd. announced a 40% investment in AVA Solutions, a specialist in data-driven mining fleet management solutions.
AVA said it has achieved 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 1,800 load and haul vehicles across 28 different sites in five countries for a range of blue-chip companies.
“Technological innovation is a key priority for Master Drilling as we continue to support our clients to move down the cost curve, optimize their operations and increase safety,” Master Drilling CEO Danie Pretorius said. “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 has 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, according to the company.
“We have grown exponentially from a startup five years ago to a recognized player with a proven technology for the mining industry,” AVA Co-founder and COO Anton Fourie said. “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.”
AVA creates 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 optimize 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, the company said.