Riku Pulli, who has made a long career at Sandvik, joined the company at the turn of the millennium, when the core business consisted mainly of mining machinery such as drilling rigs, loaders and trucks as well as their after-sales services. These remain the company’s primary products, but the range has evolved.
“We started developing autonomous mining machines more than 20 years ago. Today, they operate entirely without drivers, communicating and coordinating underground independently,” says Pulli.
Sandvik has supplied equipment around the world and has established itself as the market leader in its field. Sandvik’s largest market areas are Australia, Africa, Latin America and North America.
Sandvik’s development work has not stopped at equipment. Instead, it has expanded to include the optimisation of the entire mining process.
“We are developing software to design entire mines according to the location of the ore. The process starts with how the mine is built, how the ore is extracted and transported, regardless of whether Sandvik machines are used or not,” says Pulli, noting that the process is getting smarter all the time.
“This is an extremely interesting area for an engineer because naturally formed ore in the ground is never the same.”
As such, there is no one way to build a mine, and there are of course significant differences between continents. Optimisation will make operations significantly more efficient.
“In mining, this very often means operating more sustainably and reducing the burden on the environment,” says Pulli.
The mining industry is constantly under the microscope. Investors and customers demand transparency, and the mining sector is now focusing on management, sustainability, safety and efficiency.
“Sandvik is supporting this work by providing solutions to meet the requirements in practice,” says Pulli.
Of course, future priorities include automation and digitalisation. In the future, Sandvik’s development work will make the machines even smarter, more reliable and better at working in concert. Artificial intelligence will make it possible to optimise the entire setup even better than before.
“One of the biggest trends is the electrification of equipment, and Sandvik is the market leader in this area. Replacing diesel engines with battery-operated and electrical solutions will make the air in and around mines cleaner, reduce energy consumption and result in the whole operation becoming much more sustainable,” says Pulli.
Sandvik’s Digital Mining Technologies division continues to be strongly based in Tampere, but growth is taking place globally in locations such as Australia. Nevertheless, Finland and the Pirkanmaa region are strategically important for the company. Pulli says that Sandvik relies on a large ecosystem of small and medium-sized operators, universities and research institutes.
“Finland has been good to us. We want to retain a strong presence here even in five years’ time. This requires our network of suppliers to understand the kind of technological change that is taking place,” Pulli says emphatically.
Technological change is also strongly reflected in Sandvik’s expanded supply chain. Alongside traditional mechanical, hydraulic and electrical engineering, a rapidly growing number of software, data and automation specialists have emerged.
“Our mining business has grown by 50% in recent years. Growth-enabling technologies have brought a whole new range of partners into our network, and an increasing number of the software sector operators are becoming involved, for example.
The keynote speech by Riku Pulli “Sandvik and Digitalisation: The future of the mining industry” will be heard at the Subcontracting Fair of 2025 on Wednesday. In his speech, Pulli will highlight both the current state of the industry and significant developments in areas such as the environment, sustainability, smart technologies and automation. For the domestic subcontracting network, Pull has a clear message.
“We will continue to invest heavily in growth, which is why we want to be at the Subcontracting Fair to tell everyone what our needs are now and in the future. We want to maintain our strong position and grow our network in Finland,” says Pulli.
“We are making big investments and have a great deal of pioneering expertise. Getting on board with the developments is an amazing opportunity for our partners – in Finland, there are few concrete growth opportunities like this in the entire industry.”
