Jochen is a technologist with a track record in research and development, technology innovation and commercialization, currently representing Perth based Frontier Automation. Previous career highlights include the creation of a globally successful mining service business from scratch by gaining client acceptance of completely new methodologies. He has authored a range of in-depth journal and conference publications on diverse mining industry subjects and has achieved peer recognition for his work for example through invitation as keynote speaker to the European Symposium on Comminution and Classification (ESCC). One of Jochen's co-authored publications was selected for the 2017 Australian Institute of Mining and Metallurgy (AUSIMM) Spectrum Series reference book We are Metallurgists, Not Magicians – Landmark Papers by Practicing Metallurgists.

Jan Schäfer; Product Expert & Project Leader R&D at Schenck Process, Germany. Jan holds a Bachelor degree in Electrical Engineering and a Master’s degree in Innovation and Technology Management. After completing his degree at the Darmstadt University of Applied Sciences, in 2012, Jan commenced his engineering role at Schenck Process. Jan’s main area of focus has been the development around “Condition Monitoring of Vibrating Machines”. Jan has been the core leader in fully developing the online monitoring and portable diagnosis system. Since 2015, Jan has been involved in significant product releases and considers “Artificial Intelligence as the largest opportunity to overcome industry-typical Data Interpretation deficiencies”.

After working on a number of iron ore EPCM projects designing and integrating control systems, for the last few years Rick Mavrick has taken up a secondment within Rio Tinto’s Asset Management and Engineering Services group to continue to develop, apply and standardise the technologies used to operate Rio Tinto’s iron ore ports. Today, Rick will be sharing his reflections on how Control Systems design choices can have longer-term impacts on iron ore operators’ ability to build in-house engineering capabilities and optimise and analyse production.

Samuel Oliver is a consultant engineer from MathWorks who specializes in helping organizations improve their operations and logistics through statistical analysis, along with predictive modelling and simulation. Solutions provided typically include the integration of modern IT technologies to support data analytics, data science, big data, cloud, with more traditional OT or process industry production technologies. He has gained extensive experience over the last 7 years working on a broad range of problems with customers in Iron-Ore, Copper and Gold mining across the value chain. Prior to joining MathWorks, Sam work in the automotive industry developing advanced dynamic control systems. He received an M.Eng.Sc. in mechatronics, a B.Eng. in mechanical and manufacturing, and a B.Sc. in computer science from the University of Melbourne, Australia.

Denis leads the Advisian Digital Consulting practice for Asia Pacific and specializes in digital enablement of Asset Management processes, helping businesses exploit asset data to drive improvements in asset reliability and performance. Denis leads the development of Advisian Digital offerings in asset performance management, maintenance & integrity builds, shutdown optimization and predictive analytics and IOT solutions. Denis Holds a degree in Mechanical Engineering, Certified Maintenance & Reliability Professional (CMRP) and is an Aladon Trained RCM2 Practitioner. He brings over 20 years experience in delivery of asset management and reliability improvement projects for the resources industry including mining, oil and gas and power generation.