Why I Left Mining Operations to help Mining Operations

Twelve years. That’s how long I spent climbing the ranks in mining operations, from plant process operator to operations superintendent managing 140-person teams and $60 million budgets. And after two decades of living and breathing mining, I walked away.

I didn’t leave mining because I lost my passion for it, or because I was seeking an easier path. I left because you can’t build a better fire truck while you’re busy fighting fires. 

The Tipping Point

The moment everything crystallized was during a budget meeting at CST Canada Coal. We were discussing adding a simple completely base model fleet management system – something that would have had basic fleet tracking and reporting capabilities.

The vendor quote for the FMS? $1,000,000 and if i remember correctly an 8-month installation timeline.

I sat there thinking: We’re spending a million dollars and it won’t even talk to the best of breed drill management system we just ordered because that’s from a different vendor.

Meanwhile, our operators were still calling in load counts and the supervisors were entering that data into the production monitoring system i had built in SharePoint to tie us over until we got something proper in place.

That’s when it hit me. The problem wasn’t that mining was behind on adopting technology. The problem was that the technology being sold to mines wasn’t designed to play nice with the literally hundreds of other software’s we relied on daily to run the mine. Leaving data in hard to connect silo’s in every single department.

The Vendor Disconnect

In my 20 years, I’ve sat through many dozens of software demonstrations. Slick presentations, impressive demos, promises of revolutionary productivity gains. But there was always a disconnect. They had processes that didn’t make sense for us, or their solutions solved the wrong problems. Their salespeople had never run a shift. The developers had never stood in a dusty dispatch trailer at 3 AM trying to coordinate equipment moves around a safety incident.

At TECK Resources, I had the opportunity to be on the other side of that equation as a Digital Specialist for their Race21 program. Finally, I was the bridge between the operations team and the product development team. I could translate what the supervisors actually needed into requirements the developers could understand. World class operations understand their futures depend on the management operating systems they build today.

The Operations Reality

Let me paint you a picture of what mining operations actually look like. It’s 2 AM, and your primary loading unit goes down. You’ve got 12 haul trucks that need to be rerouted, a night shift supervisor who needs to make decisions with incomplete information, and a maintenance crew that’s working in the dark – literally and figuratively.

Your $3 million fleet management system should be helping coordinate this response. Instead, your dispatcher is on the radio to give instructions to each truck driver individually, your lead hand is driving over to transport the operator from the down loading unit to the backup loading unit, and your shift supervisor is on the pickup laptop digging through SharePoint file folders looking for training docs to find out if the operator is actually signed off to operate the backup loading unit before the dispatcher reroutes the trucks, and your maintenance crew, well your maintenance crew is hunting for a part in a coal covered sea can because the CMMS doesn’t integrate with your satellite warehouse parts inventory. 

This isn’t a hypothetical scenario. This is Tuesday night at mines across the world.

The Innovation That’s Not Happening

While mining struggles with software that barely works, other industries are leaping ahead. Agriculture has autonomous tractors. Construction has real-time 3D project monitoring. Manufacturing has predictive maintenance that actually predicts.

Why is mining stuck in the past? Because the software vendors have no incentive to innovate quickly. Once they’ve got you locked in, they know switching costs are prohibitive. They can take 3-5 years to roll out new features because where else are you going to go?

Building the Solution

We’re building the solutions I wish I’d had as an operations superintendent. For two decades I’ve personally used music recording software’s that allow me to extend it’s functionality by simply purchasing a plugin, but if you think that you’ll be able to do the same for a multi-billion dollar mining enterprise then you’d be wrong. 

Open Mine OS – is an ambitious, open-source, plugin based and fully modular mine management operating system initiative aimed at breaking vendor lock-in and accelerating innovation from years to months.

OPS3D – an immersive real-time 3D collaboration system that puts your board of directors, mine managers, engineers, supervisors, and dispatchers in the same hyper realistic environment.

OPS5D – is an agentic mining optimization platform for the entire organization. While the industry rushes to embrace Short Interval Control (SIC) we’re already imaging Mining 4.0’s promise of Continuous Control (CC).

But more importantly, we’re building these solutions with the operational expertise and deep empathy for users that most technology companies lack. I know what it’s like to make decisions with incomplete information under pressure. I understand the difference between features that sound good in presentations and features that actually help in the field.

The Bigger Picture

We’re at an inflection point. Mining companies are under pressure to be more efficient, more sustainable, and more safe. The old way of doing technology – buying whatever the established vendors are selling – won’t meet these challenges.

The solution is to approach technology the same way mining approaches everything else: with operational expertise, practical problem-solving, and a relentless focus on results.

Why This Matters to You

If you’re reading this and you’re in mining operations, you know exactly what I’m talking about. You’ve lived the frustration of systems that don’t work, vendors that don’t listen, and technology that creates more problems than it solves.

If you’re a mining executive, you’ve seen the budget line items. You know you’re spending millions on technology that isn’t delivering the ROI you need.

The Path Forward

The solutions exist. The technology is available. What’s been missing is the bridge between operational reality and technological possibility.

I believe there’s a better way. That’s why Rumble Mining Systems exists. Not to criticize from the outside, but to build from the inside out.

Ready to discuss how your mining operations could work better? Let’s talk. 

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Clint Rumbolt is the founder of Rumble Mining Systems and has 20+ years of mining experience, from business analyst to operations superintendent. He’s currently developing next-generation mining software while helping companies optimize their current operations through strategic consulting.