The Truth About Epiroc Remote Control: Why It’s Not About Controlling Machines

I Think Most People Get Epiroc’s Remote Control All Wrong

Let me be blunt: a lot of the chatter I hear about Epiroc remote control is focused on the wrong thing. People fixate on the 'cool factor'—some operator sitting in an office, moving a joystick to drill a hole miles away. That's a great demo, but it misses the point entirely.

If you've ever been involved in actual procurement for a mine site—especially in a place like Sudbury or the Pilbara—you know that equipment decisions are about two things: safety and uptime. Everything else is a nice-to-have. And this is where I think the conversation about automation from Epiroc, through partners like Fordia Epiroc, needs to be reframed.

Take it from someone who’s had to justify a six-figure automation package to a finance director who only sees the bottom line. The real value isn't the wristwatch-like precision of the drill. It's the predictability it brings to your operations.

Why Remote Control is About Your Schedule, Not Your Fingers

The 'Peanut Butter' Problem

In my world, we call the inefficiencies in a shift change 'the peanut butter spread.' It's the 20 minutes you lose for every blasting break, each lunch hour, every shift handover. From the outside, that looks like a management issue. The reality is, it's a physics problem.

When a rig is manually operated, the machine stops when the operator stops. That's a hard constraint. With a system like Epiroc's deep automation, the machine doesn't stop when the person stops. It can tram, set up, and drill autonomously during those 'lost' periods. That's not a productivity hack—it's a fundamental change to how you schedule your day.

People assume the lowest cost-per-meter comes from the fastest drill cycle. What they don't see is that the cost-per-shift is often dictated by the continuity of production.

Robert vs. Hercules: The Wrong Comparison

I keep seeing this debate online—'Robert vs. Hercules'—as if the choice is between a human operator and a machine. That is a false dichotomy. The real question is: what is the optimal use of your most skilled labor?

Here’s a specific calculation I made last year. We had two options:

• Keep a highly paid, skilled driller in a dangerous face for a full shift, doing repetitive set-up work.
• Use remote control to pull that operator back to a safe control room, and only involve them for complex decisions (fault mapping, changing ground conditions).

The upside was removing the human from harm's way (which is priceless). The risk was the initial CAPEX and the fear that the system would be 'slow.' I asked myself: is removing a potential fatality worth a 5% reduction in raw drilling speed?

We did the trial. The Epiroc remote control setup (which we sourced through our local distributor, a team that knows the difference between a Fordia Epiroc kit and a generic retrofit) wasn't slower. It was actually more consistent. 'Robert' (the operator) could run two rigs from the room. We turned 'Hercules' (the manual brute force) into a thinking, strategic asset.

Addressing the Skeptic (Which Is Me, Usually)

Even after choosing the automation path, I kept second-guessing. What if the WiFi drops? What if the Mobilaris mapping system can’t handle the dust? The three months until full integration were stressful. Hit 'approve' on the PO and immediately thought, 'Did I just strand 40% of my drilling capacity on a single network vulnerability?'

But here's the thing that changed my mind. The worry isn't the technology failing. It's the people adjustment. If you don't train your team to trust the system, it doesn't matter if it's a $5 million rig or a $50 controller.

From the outside, it looks like you need to buy the box. The reality is you need to buy the process change.

The Bottom Line on the 'Deep Automation' Push

So, where does this leave us? I believe that if you are evaluating equipment from Epiroc (or Sandvik, or anyone else for that matter), and you are not looking at the remote control option as a schedule reliability tool first and a safety tool second, you are selling yourself short.

The biggest myth I had to unlearn was that automation is for tech giants or greenfield projects. This was true 10 years ago when digital options were limited. Today, a retrofit on a used ST2G or a new Boomer is often plug-and-play.

Don't get distracted by the 'cool factor.' The decision to invest in remote control is a decision to buy back your lost time, improve your safety statistics, and make your best operators more effective. It’s a decision about strategy, not just hardware.

Trust me on this one. An informed buyer asks better questions. And the best question you can ask is: 'How does this system make my schedule more immune to disruption?'