SHORT COURSES
Automate Mine Metrics Reporting: From Excel to Power BI
Level: Introductory
Facilitators: Sihong Peng, Consultant, Minax Inc.
As an essential tool to gauge the health of the operation, a mine metrics report is often built within Microsoft Excel with data sourced from various department files. The engineering team updates the data and sends a PDF/Excel report by email to their leadership. Often this format can be inefficient and difficult to view on mobile devices, and often time consuming.
Through this short course, attendees are introduced to Power BI, a tool intended to make data reporting and consumption streamlined and mobile-friendly. Attendees will learn how to bring their existing mine production data into Power BI and get hands-on experience in making charts and cards to present mine KPIs in a visually informative manner. Finally, attendees can expect to automate the data fetch process and distribute the report on a defined schedule, and in return creating a more efficient and streamlined approach to mine metrics reporting.
As a bonus to the CIM attendees, this course will demonstrate how to fully automate the source data refresh of your organization's network drives while also creating a mobile-native dashboard for ease of use on mobile devices.
Top Takeaways:
Understanding the key differences and advantages of both the traditional (Excel) way and the Power BI way
Understanding of the general workflow from source data to final report
Gaining hands-on experience of developing a mine metrics report in Power BI for interactive self-service data consumption (both on PC and on mobile)
Efficiently automating routine work through Power Automate
Free sample reports for customization to suit your business scenarios
* Participants are required to bring their own laptop with the admin rights or a laptop with Power BI for Desktop and Power Automate installed.
Short Course Objectives:
Learn the basic use of Power BI
Gain hands-on experience in linking various production data sources for automated reporting
Understand data transformation techniques
Set up robotic routines to automatically refresh data with minimal manual intervention
Use metrics and goals to track high-level progress
Share data and report to target audience at given frequency
Target Audience:
Mine Technical Services Personnel, Metrics Engineers, Mine Superintendents and Managers, IT Business Partners, Data and Reporting Analysts and Specialists, Digital Transformation Personnel and People with Interest in Data Analysis
About the instructors:
Sihong has worked in the mining industry since 2011 with a wide range of experience including surveying, ventilation, ground control, geology, development planning, production planning, mine design and scheduling, and business intelligence. He has always been interested in process improvement through automation. Prior to founding Minax Inc., a consulting business focusing on helping mining operations with their digitalization efforts, Sihong assumed the role of Superintendent - iROC Data and Governance at Vale’s iROC where he led the development and implementation of multiple digital solutions and Power BI reports that automate data transmission near real-time to mine site leadership and other stakeholders in a digital format. Sihong is a certified professional engineer in the province of Ontario. He has also received the data science certificate from University of Toronto and University of Waterloo. Sihong received his Master of Applied Science degree in mineral resources engineering from Laurentian University in Canada and his Bachelor of Science degree in information and computation science from Wuhan University of Technology in China.