MOSS cuts blasting overbreak and simplifies face markup

Sudburyminingsolutions.com reports that the Miner Operated Survey System (MOSS) developed by former Falconbridge employee Bernie Smith and still in use by Glencore at its Nickel Rim and Raglan operations, is now available to the global mining market.

“Northern Survey Supply (NSS), a surveying company serving the mining industry from offices in Sudbury and Oakville, teamed up with the now retired Smith, who has rewritten MOSS in an AutoCAD platform.”

According to NSS Senior Account Manager Bruno Lalonde it is now “far superior in operating power and functionality”. Miners perform the survey and overlay it on the mine plan using a tablet, “so they can understand in real time every round, every face and how it has broken.”

The system calculates overbreak and underbreak, “which is great, unheard of and doesn’t happen anywhere else,” said Lalonde.

“Studies show that most mines are looking at an overbreak of 20%. With MOSS, we’re able to bring that down to under 10%, so there’s less waste and an immediate return on investment.”

The system tells the miner exactly where to collar the hole within millimetres of accuracy. The miner paints marks on the face and marks up the whole pattern. Using the traditional method of marking up the face takes a lot more time, and is much less accurate.

“Also, with this process there’s no need for a scoop at the face to mark it up because you can use a paint stick to reach the back height without any problems,” said Lalonde.

Using an instrument called the MS60, which is integrated with the MOSS system, the miner does a full 3D LiDAR scan. “It takes a picture and creates a point cloud which then creates a 3D mesh. With this process, you’re able to get an accurate volume. With 3D mapping, geologists can see any slips, dykes or structure issues in the back. If the miner is at the face and says the ground doesn’t look too good, he can connect to the network and the geologist on surface can see what’s going on, per face, per round. As the development is going forward, so is this information.”

The imagery also shows the ground support, so in the event of a fall of ground, there’s documentation to prove that the ground support was properly installed.

MOSS positively impacts professionalism and worker satisfaction, Lalonde told Sudbury Mining Solutions. “Because the surveys are done per round, per shift, the guys take a lot more ownership of their work. There’s more pride involved. At the end of a shift, they can say ‘I was under 5% overbreak.’ Because they take a picture, they know what the round looks like.

“The return on investment is within 82 m of development,” said Lalonde. “The cost savings are huge.”

There is also an improvement in cycle times.

“The whole process – markup, setting up the instrument, teardown – takes 25 minutes, which is huge because the normal cycle time to mark up a face is an hour plus, so we’re saving on cycle time and saving on surveyors and geologists not having to come down to the face.”

In the absence of MOSS, surveys aren’t done as frequently, so there’s a possibility of significant deviation from the mine plan.

“Traditionally what happens is you get out by four feet, you get out by a metre and the mine design has to be adapted based on that because you can’t just say, ‘We’ll turn here.’ You can’t do that in rock. MOSS helps miners stay true to the mine plan.

“It’s easy for me to believe in the system because of my surveying background,” said Lalonde. “I never had MOSS. Now that I see MOSS and how simple it is to implement, I’m convinced it’s the way surveying is going.”