Click to download and read pdf
It is now over 18 months since the full force of the COVID 19 Pandemic caused radical changes to the lives and working practices of almost every community on Earth. It is no surprise that so many technical articles and developments are emerging as a direct response to the ongoing need to minimise the spread of this too often deadly virus. In a nutshell, reducing the spread of COVID 19 involves minimising person to person contact: hence lockdowns, working from home, travel restrictions and social distancing guidelines. We have all been required to isolate at some level to limit the number of contacts we have with people ‘outside of our bubbles’.
Science and technology were quick to step up in response. Initially with a treatment focus to fast track the delivery of healthcare equipment, medication, PPE and sanitising products, but a massive data collection drive quickly kicked in to monitor daily global spread, while the use of virtual meeting platforms, Internet-shopping and delivery services also rose exponentially.
The development and distribution of COVID 19 vaccines, however, is likely to emerge as the greatest and most successful global vaccination programme ever. On September 1 ‘Our World in Data’ recorded that 39.6% of the world population had received at least one dose of a COVID-19 vaccine; 5.34-billion doses had been administered globally; and 40.5-million were being administered every day. On the negative side, however, only 1.8% of the people in low-income countries had received a dose, which creates opportunities for vaccine-evading variants and so demands urgent action from better-resourced nations.
The speedy development and approval of COVID-19 vaccines, along with a significant number of different vaccines that have proved effective, is a remarkable achievement for the scientists involved. Also, though, production volumes – delivered in highly regulated batches due to the possibility of biological contamination – are staggering. The world’s biggest vaccine maker is now the Serum Institute of India, which at the end of August, was producing 150-million doses per month of its version of the AstraZeneca vaccine.
In a Minerals processing interview in this issue, Multotec’s Thomas Holtz talks about the need for much closer cooperation and collaboration between service and equipment suppliers to realise the true value of Fourth Industrial Revolution (4IR) technology. He cites the success of the development programme for Tesla’s autonomous motor vehicle as an example. This innovative success story, he says, is built on “an incredible collaborative ecosystem consisting of multiple highly specialised partners”. Collaboration is also clearly evident in the development, production and distribution of COVID-19 vaccines. A Nature.com editorial from June 2021 says that, while collaboration between academia and industry is well established, “…the speed and scale of achievement during the pandemic — globally, 16 vaccines have been approved so far, with a further nine in full phase III clinical trials — is rare, if not unprecedented”.
Holtz argues that “the true value of the autonomous plant lies in production efficiency and optimisation: being able to extract the highest possible mineral recovery from the whole plant, from run-of-mine ore to saleable minerals.” To achieve this, he points out, we need to be willing to form partnerships and alliances, share information and open up our businesses to a host of stakeholders, including competitors.
In an article on UNIDO’s Industrial Analytics Platform, Alejandro Lavopa and Michele Delera argue that, although 4IR is the product of technological advances, it is uniquely marked by a blurring of the boundaries between the biological, the physical and the digital realms. “Machines ‘speak’ to each other through the internet of things, processes respond to intelligence devised by algorithms, and humans engage in real-time ‘conversations’ with mechanical processes through bidirectional interfaces,” note the authors.
“What truly sets Industry 4.0 technologies apart is the novel way in which hardware, software and connectivity are being reconfigured and integrated to achieve ever-more ambitious goals, the collection and analysis of vast amounts of data, the seamless interaction between smart machines, and the blurring of the physical and virtual dimensions of production.
Another of Thomas Holtz’ core 4IR messages is about people: “At the outset, I think we must make a case for the human being in this equation,” he says. The collaborative deployment of our scientific and technological expertise to cope with and then overcome the COVID-19 pandemic has put the health and survival of the people most vulnerable to succumb to COVID-19 at its centre. This proves, beyond doubt, that science and technology innovations such as those associated with 4IR are invaluable, particularly when applied to people’s real needs and imminent threats.
Climate change demands that we again collaborate to overcome a real and present danger and 4IR technologies are likely to be a core aspect of this multi-faceted campaign, which will need to have resource, production and energy efficiency at its core if we are to sufficiently limit green-house gas emissions to avoid irreversible harm to our planet.
