While the explosion in data in many of the technology-lead industries seems to grow larger each year unabated, other industries are yet to get off the mark altogether. The collaboration of data pipelines could see legacy industries begin to make great leaps towards becoming platforms for scientific, financial and other technical research. However, a dichotomy exists between the fruitful existence that these industries promise; and the legacy that follows the mining and minerals processing industries in South Africa. Confidentiality in mines and minerals industry hampers the collaboration between industry, financial and socio-economic researchers.
The time has come to convert mines and minerals operations into data source platforms from which experts and other stakeholders can make meaningful contributions; as is the case with financial data in stock markets. Mines and minerals processing plants generate large amounts of data; when the companies withhold this data, they risk falling behind the technology bullrun that has seen many industries be disrupted for the better. On the other hand, the benefits of making the operations data-bases available is far much greater. From this data, the science community can create useful metric that can then be used to measure the actual performance of one mine against another.