Dr David Dekker discussed the importance of a multidisciplinary approach to automation, the infrastructure
required to support automation, and selecting the equipment for automation. Dekker stressed that automation involves a number of technologies. The mining industry is currently about
part-way through the evolutionary process of achieving a fully integrated automation system. He pointed out
that the final stages require parallel development of infrastructure such as mine communications. Technologies required for automation Automation systems consist of three parts: the gathering of information, the processing of that information, and
taking action.