Wertek AI for mining

This page describes how the Wertek AI platform applies to mining operations: which sector pain points it addresses, with which modules, and over which assets. It is an applicability guide, not a catalog of executed projects.

Market context

Mexico is the world's top silver producer and ranks among the top ten in gold, copper, and zinc, making mining one of the country's most significant industrial sectors. Processing plants run 24/7 under extreme conditions — dust, heat, ambient vibration — with assets whose downtime cost is very high: when crushing or grinding stops, the entire downstream production chain stops with it. Add to that geographically remote and dispersed operations, where bringing a vibration analyst to site is expensive and infrequent, and a grinding energy cost that weighs heavily on cost per ton. In that context, predictive maintenance stops being a luxury: every hour of unplanned downtime avoided translates directly into production.

Sector pain points

The pain points Wertek AI addresses in mining, in the words of those who run the plants:

• Unplanned downtime in crushing and grinding. A hot bearing or a rotor imbalance that no one caught in time stops the entire plant, not just one machine.
• Remote, dispersed assets. Pumping wells, kilometer-long conveyors, and equipment in hard-to-reach areas fall outside the range of traditional inspection routes.
• Shortage of on-site vibration analysts. The specialist visits every few months; failures develop between visits.
• Accelerated wear from abrasion. Slurry pumps suffer cavitation and impeller wear far faster than a clean-water pump; without monitoring, the failure is discovered only once it has already damaged the equipment.
• Energy cost and regulatory risk. Mines are large medium/high-voltage load centers: low power factor, imbalance, and harmonics mean penalties and, under Mexico's Grid Code (Código de Red), risk of non-compliance.
• Reactive maintenance with no history. Without a digital record per asset, every failure is diagnosed from scratch and critical spare parts are bought out of fear, not data.

The Wertek solution

For mining, Wertek AI combines its modules over a single digital asset identity:

• Digital asset identity with QR/NFC: every crusher, mill, pump, and conveyor exists digitally with its hierarchy (plant → area → equipment) and accumulates its full history, even if the operator or contractor changes.
• Diagnostics and condition monitoring: continuous monitoring with wireless vibration and temperature sensors on critical equipment, plus on-demand diagnostics with the phone (ultrasound, thermography, signal upload) for the rest of the fleet. Alerts are handled as incidents with onset, escalation, and recovery — not as an endless list of threshold alarms.
• Energy and power quality: consumption per area, power factor, imbalance, and THD at 5-minute granularity, including Grid Code compliance monitoring.
• CMMS and field service: from alert to work order with photographic evidence, prioritized by asset criticality.
• AI Copilot: assisted interpretation of measurements and alerts, in the field team's language.
• Visual vibration diagnostics (VibeDiag): visual screening of structures and large equipment where installing sensors is impractical.

What Wertek does NOT do in mining: it is not a DCS or process control system (it does not control mills or crushers — it observes them), it does not manufacture or sell proprietary sensors (it integrates third-party hardware), and it does not replace the expert analyst on complex cases: it hands over the data already organized so their time goes further.

Typical assets and sensors

Equipment Wertek AI is designed to monitor in a mining plant, and with which modality:

The available modalities are those of the platform: wireless vibration/temperature sensors integrated in production, phone-based capture (ultrasound for bearings and compressed-air leaks, thermography), multi-brand energy meters, and VibeDiag visual vibration diagnostics. Wertek does not require a single proprietary hardware; the detail of supported sensors is in diagnostics and monitoring.

Compliance and standards

In mining, Wertek AI helps generate evidence against three frameworks:

• Vibration severity (ISO 10816): the health index of monitored equipment is based on the standard's vibration severity criteria, with a traceable history per measurement point.
• Grid Code (Mexico): mines are large medium/high-voltage load centers. The platform compares five-minute measurements against the regulatory limits (power factor, imbalance, THD per IEEE-519) and generates the compliance report — continuous evidence, not an annual audit.
• ISO 55001 (asset management): the digital record per asset — hierarchy, condition history, work orders with evidence — builds the documentary foundation an ISO 55001 implementation requires. A dedicated ISO 55001 management module is under development ROADMAP.

Reference case

Reference case in mining in progress — Wertek has not yet published a case for this sector. If you operate a mining plant, contact Wertek for a demo with your own assets: asset registration is unlimited and free, and the first problem machine is the best pilot. Published cases from other sectors are in success stories and example applications. </content>