Much research is aimed at providing a revolutionary advance in
technology that has the potential to render current mining and
beneficiation problems obsolete. Such revolutionary
advancements have been significant but few in number. Recent
history shows that most improvement has been derived from a
series of incremental improvements to the many processes that
make up mining and beneficiation systems. Management
approaches are changing to encourage this 'continuous
improvement' and to support its implementation through the
formal management of quality. This paper reviews some of the
industry's priority R&D project areas and demonstrates that very
significant opportunities are available to broaden the focus for
improvement from individual processes to include the interaction
between mining and mineral beneficiation systems.