Dassault Systemes, which is referred to as the 3DExperience company, through recently acquired Gemcom Software (transitioning to being known by the brand name GEOVIA) has announced significant updates to its Surpac, GEMS, InSite, Whittle, and MineSched applications targeted at the mining industry. “With the mining industry facing higher costs and more pressure on commodity prices, it is imperative that they be able to unlock additional efficiencies and economic value from their mining operations,” said Rick Moignard, CEO, GEOVIA.
“The new and enhanced features that we are announcing today across much of our application portfolio will provide additional tools and functionality for mining professionals to better quantify, plan and manage extraction of their ore bodies.” Moniva Menghini, EVP Industry and Marketing at Dassault Systems comments: “The latest updates to the GEOVIA product portfolio underline our commitment to delivering innovations that will help our customers achieve sustainable mining productivity. Dassault Systèmes is excited to expand its 3DExperience platform into the natural resources arena, and the mining industry specifically. The advanced geological modeling and simulation capabilities that the Surpac, GEMS, InSite, Whittle and MineSched applications bring to our 3DExperience platform will help us fulfill our company’s purpose even faster: harmonising products with nature and life.”
Mining operations often employ several GEOVIA products and use its geology, engineering, and operations services to help them realise the full potential of their mineral deposits. One such site, Dundee Precious Metals’ Chelopech mine in Bulgaria, employs GEMS for geology and mine planning, and InSite to assist with mine production management. “When Dundee Precious Metals made the decision to undertake an ambitious program of doubling production and lowering unit costs at our Chelopech mine, we sought out technology and vendors we could partner with who could enable us to achieve this goal, which is why we turned to Gemcom Software, now Dassault Systemes’ GEOVIA brand,” said Rick Howes, EVP and Chief Operating Officer for Dundee Precious Metals. “Their software and services have played a key role in enabling us to implement an innovative solution for better controlling mining processes across the operation, from the block model to final product, including key components of an innovative central monitoring system. We look forward to the new benefits its updated software will deliver.”
As an example, Surpac 6.4, available in the first quarter of 2013, is the latest version of the world’s most popular geology and mine planning software. This version of Surpac will deliver a new integrated Dynamic Shells tool for significant time savings when initially evaluating deposits, and also provide increased memory handling using 64-bit architecture to make it easier and faster to work with extremely large datasets. Additionally, Surpac 6.4 has a new stereoscopic 3D visualisation capability to enhance visualisation, presentations and decision making, plus many more features to save time and increase efficiency. GEMS 6.5, available in the first quarter of 2013, is the latest version of GEOVIA’s collaborative geology and mine planning application. As with Surpac, this version will deliver the new integrated Dynamic Shells tool for significant time savings when initially evaluating deposits. This release will also provide quicker, more robust Solids/Surface repair, with new functionality reducing solids validation time from days to minutes, and additional features to improve productivity.
Whittle 4.5 is the latest update to the industry’s leading strategic mine planning application for open pit mines. Offering streamlined processes to allow increased economic value to be discovered, this version enables mining companies to develop more practical mine plans with the use of a new mining direction feature and alternative pushback creation capabilities. MineSched 8.0, available later this year, is the latest version of GEOVIA’s next generation scheduling application for surface and underground mines of all types and sizes. MineSched provides mining companies with the capabilities to develop tactical schedules that maximise productivity and minimise costs. MineSched 8.0 provides many new features and enhancements in addition to greatly improved performance. Production scheduling is up to 50 times faster and development scheduling is 10 times faster, making most scheduling runs almost instantaneous.
Finally, InSite 4.2, available later this year, is the latest version of GEOVIA’s mine production management application that records and evaluates data for service, support and production activities from the mine through to saleable product, enabling rapid return on investment. In addition to several new features to provide operations with even more confidence in production data, this version provides updates to the custom reports and analytics module for enhanced performance, along with improved material balance and stockpile management to streamline reconciliation and end-of-month processes.
