According to a recent survey by Timetric’s Mining Intelligence Centre (MIC), GEOVIA’s Surpac has come out as the most widely used mining software across African mines, followed by Datamine and Hexagon Mining’s MineSight. Timetric’s MIC identified the different mining software platforms used at individual mine sites across the African continent based on interviews with over 110 African mine managers and other senior decision-makers. The respondents were asked to nominate one or multiple software used in five main mining processes: ‘geological mapping and block modelling’, ‘surveying’, ‘drill and blast’, ‘mine scheduling’ and ‘mine planning’.
GEOVIA states that the survey results “indicated a clear preference for GEOVIA’s Surpac, as it dominated nominations in each of the five categories.” Surpac was used by 43% of mines for ‘mine planning’, 38% for ‘geological mapping and block modelling’, 38% also for ‘surveying’ and 34% for ‘drill and blasting’ needs as well as ‘scheduling purposes’. Only two other software platforms, Datamine and MineSight, were nominated in second place across the three categories. Datamine software was the second-most used software for ‘geological mapping’ and ‘block modelling’ with 20%, and for ‘mine planning’ purposes with 12%. Whereas Hexagon Mining’s MineSight software was nominated as the second-most used surveying software with 10%.
Software platforms – MineSight, Datamine and AEL Mining Services – are in second position for ‘drill and blast’, with 9% for all three. Scheduling software had three platforms nominated in second spot, Datamine, XPAC and MineSight with 13% for all three. “Depressed commodity prices continue to impact the industry, with more mining companies fighting to remain competitive. Investments in new technologies and their successful implementation on site might significantly aid in a company’s success. The survey results here show a cost effective use of single software across a broad range of commodity sectors and mining functions,” says Nez Guevara, Senior Mining Analyst at Timetric’s MIC.
