October 2019 marked the official 40th anniversary of the incorporation of Modular Mining Systems, Inc. This milestone occasion brings to mind how the company has grown from a three-person start-up in a small residence in Tucson, Arizona, into an industry-leading enterprise with more than 800 employees working in 10 offices around the world.
In October of 1979, a University of Arizona (UA) professor, one of his graduate students, and a UA alum envisioned using cutting-edge technology to transform the mining industry. The trio decided to take a chance, follow their convictions, and start a company.
The name they chose: Modular Mining Systems.
The product they built: The DISPATCH FMS.
The customer who gambled on that risky, yet very promising endeavor: Phelps Dodge.
Our co-founders faced countless challenges with no certainty of success. It took a lot of courage, a great customer partnership, and commitment from a few highly-talented, motivated individuals to turn that bold vision into reality. Together, the entrepreneurs embarked on a journey rooted in the idea that great value is achieved when innovative technology and open collaboration are used to overcome a challenge.
In the last 40 years, Modular Mining has invested heavily to grow our company and expand our offerings to the mining industry, leveraging new technologies, partnerships, and service models to enable our customers to achieve greater value. These offerings include an entire suite of mine management solutions, the FrontRunner Autonomous Haulage System (in partnership with Komatsu’s autonomous haulage trucks), and unrivaled services such as the Performance Assurance program. The result is impressive. We’ve enabled the movement of more than 100 billion additional tonnes of material, in over 250 mines across the globe – an amount equivalent to nearly 500 haul trucks operating continuously for the last four decades.
As a company, we have many accomplishments under our belt, but we’re far from done.
As we look to the future, we will see more automated decision making, connected data across mining operations for better insights, and a much more open approach to sharing data between technology providers, OEMs, and the industry.
By continuing to work as a team with our customers and the industry we are excited to transform our existing product portfolio and take our services to a new level with Consulting Solutions, and set the stage for leveraging data and innovation to optimize the entire mining value chain in real time.
To our employees, thank you for your dedication and for making Modular Mining such a great organization. To our customers, thank you for your trust and partnerships and for making this incredible journey possible.
Cheers to the next 40 years!
