• In this interview, Cecilia Meléndez, manager of IMPULSA 4.0, talks about the technological knowledge and skills that the human capital of the new mining industry will need, and explains how the project she is leading will determine the jobs that will be most in demand.

The mining sector has a very clear roadmap. Looking ahead to industry 4.0, the mining industry understands that technology and innovation are the way to achieve better productivity and safety rates for its workers. It is also aware that it must continue its commitment to the environment, remain sustainable in the use of water resources and energy, and strive towards decarbonization. Mining in the face of change 4.0 is clear about the need to move along the path of shared social value and promote a more just and inclusive transition of jobs.

It is in this context that the IMPULSA 4.0 project was born, implemented by the Corporacion Cluster Minero of the Region of Antofagasta and the CCM-Eleva Partnership, with the backing of Antofagasta Minerals, BHP, Codelco and SQM. Its purpose is to strengthen the training-labor ecosystem throughout the region in order to position it as a pioneer in addressing the training challenges posed by industry 4.0.

In this interview, the manager of IMPULSA 4.0, Cecilia Melendez, outlines the value of the sectoral efforts that go with this initiative and the importance of offering relevant training opportunities to meet the demand for mining profiles that will be required in the Fourth Industrial Revolution.. The challenges involved will center around greater digital interconnection, automation, and the use of artificial intelligence.

What is the reality of the Region of Antofagasta in the face of the challenges posed by the mining industry 4.0 and the educational challenges it involves?

The region features world-class mining that is at the forefront of technology and has a commitment to the communities. In this context, the traditional levers of legitimacy such as employment and poorly qualified local vendors doing routine tasks must be updated to boost new levers associated with the knowledge and technological development of the territories in which they operate.

In the field of labor training, there is another challenge. An examination of the local employment figures in the “Monitoring of Local Employment Indicators,” published in April 2023 by the CCM-Eleva Partnership, Antofagasta ranks the lowest as compared to other mining regions in Chile. With 5 percentage points below, this region shows a 62% of local employability vs. 67% of the other mining regions. That is another phenomenon that is currently under study.

In terms of educational challenges, our training offerings are not quite relevant and are out of date in relation to current and future demands. In the mining industry of the country’s main mining region —which will employ 47% of the future demand for mining employment (12,000)— 11 percent of training enrollment is linked to mining.

How will mining companies specifically address the future demand for job profiles 4.0?

This is a challenge and companies are doing what is required to avoid cannibalism. They will all need the same people and there will be no human capital trained in technological skills to supply the demand of the sector. It is for this reason that what we are developing is unprecedented, because currently no planning has been done for these future workforce new positions. Since its inception, using IMPULSA 4.0’s collaborative strategy we are determining what these new positions, profiles and associated demand for them will be; thus we are writing the future of mining from the Region of Antofagasta and out to the world. The aim is to have more women studying mining related technical and professional careers and qualifying for STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) profile requirements. In this way, significant indicators for the mining sector in the territory may improve—such as greater women’s participation in the industry, more local employment, greater relevance of training offerings, and an increase in timely and nationwide benchmarked graduation rates.

How much longer into the future are these yet-to-be-created positions envisaged to be needed?

In 2018, the Mining Council predicted that the Fourth Industrial Revolution would take seven years to be introduced in mining operations nationwide. However, these projections materialized almost five years ahead of that time, possibly due to the effect of the global pandemic, which accelerated technological changes worldwide. The expectation was that there would be more time for preparedness, but the reality is that technologies 4.0 are already in place the industry. World-class mining companies currently set up in the Region of Antofagasta have their autonomy programs for CAEX trucks, autonomous drilling rigs, Integrated Operation Centers (IOC) and future trolling projects. Fifty-two percent of the companies operate with integrated operations centers (EFL 2021).

What is IMPULSA 4.0’s implementation structure like?

This is a five-year program. Prior to its being launched in March 2023, crucial pre-design work was undertaken for 13 months to bring together wills and engage the key actors of the Region of Antofagasta.

The first pivot of implementing this project is to start by addressing the “Prospective Study of Demand for Profiles 4.0,” which is currently underway in conjunction with Fundacion Chile’s Circular-HR and with four mining companies: AMSA, BHP, Codelco and SQM. Several specialists have participated in the mining processes that will be impacted by the new technologies in copper, lithium, nitrate and iodine mining, and among the early findings 23 new technologies can be identified.

Additionally, in conjunction with IDEAR–UCN, the “Baseline or Territorial Diagnosis Study” and the “Qualitative Study of Local Employment and the commuting Phenomenon” are underway, in which 33 public-private actors, commuted workers and union representatives are being interviewed in order to develop strategies to reduce workforce commuting times.

There is a third study that will help sizing teachers’ capabilities and the region´s infrastructure and equipment in order to address the teaching and learning of technological skills at the 17 technical and professional high schools in the area that offer special STEM-related fields of study.

This is Phase 1, comprising the first year during which a participatory co-design will be created using the education and labor ecosystem of the Region of Antofagasta. This will in turn enable a definition of the action areas to be comprised in Phases 2 and 3 relating to the intervention and scaling of IMPULSA 4.0.

What is your evaluation of the students’ willingness in the Region of Antofagasta to join this new challenge?

It is important to conduct this survey because it will have benefits for the inhabitants of the region, for high schools, training centers, universities, the regional government and businesses. In that regard, I would like to send three messages to the students. The first is that technologies are here to stay and we must get prepared regarding our technological competencies and skills, as well as our training, professional and continuing education choices to address these challenges. The second is that with the support of the Mining Cluster Corporation of the Region of Antofagasta and the CCM-Eleva Partnership, we are writing the future from mining, a sector that for some young people may seem distant, but which in reality is an industry at the forefront of technology, which provides opportunities, which has this commitment to the future and which also has a shared value with the territories because it is an intergenerational mobilizer. The third message is that, coming from the Region of Antofagasta, I would like this project to continue scaling to more mining companies and new industrial sectors in order to turn the area into a pioneering region in the approach to industry 4.0. The invitation is to be on the alert to embrace the opportunities that IMPULSA 4.0 can provide.