Market-leading software helps global mining companies increase speed, accuracy and predictability of mine planning. Mincom has announced a major upgrade to its suite of software for mine design and modelling. Featuring new functionality identified through input from leading mining companies around the world, Minescape 5 speeds the development of more accurate plans, thereby improving the predictability and profitability of operations across the entire mining value chain. “Mining companies today are under increasing pressure to boost output from their existing mines and to bring new projects online quickly. However, the long-term performance of an operation is completely dependent on effective mine modeling and planning,” said John Jessop, Vice President of Global Mining Solutions, Mincom. “MineScape 5 is now the most advanced mine planning and modeling solution in the marketplace. With the introduction of MineScape 5, we leverage 30 years of experience and intellectual property to offer our customers robust new functionality for mine planning, designed to deliver efficiency improvements to the modelling and planning process. And, as a core component of our complete enterprise solution set for the mining industry, MineScape 5 also underscores the company’s significant commitment to and investment in the mining industry.”
Mincom MineScape is the mine planning component of the Mincom Intelligent Mining Solution (IMS) suite, which provides an extremely comprehensive set of technical mining solutions spanning the entire spectrum of mining processes, from exploration to final product sales. Specifically developed to meet the industry’s rigorous demands, Mincom claims to offer “the only complete enterprise solution for the mining industry that provides corporate management, asset management, work management and technical mining underpinned by integration and mobility frameworks that extend the overall value of the solution. Mincom’s solutions are used in more than 200 of the world’s most complex mining operations – including 17 of the world’s top 20 mining companies.
“As a customer of Mincom MineScape for more than 20 years, we’ve experienced tremendous gains in efficiency and productivity in our mining operations,” said Jason Buenemann, Project Engineer at Kiewit Mining Group (KMG), a producer of coal in North America. “The solution has dramatically increased the productivity of our engineers, allowing many to transfer to management roles where their analytical skills better benefit the entire operation and they can now review multiple design concepts in much shorter periods of time. In short, MineScape has become a critical core competency for any engineer working for KMG, bringing efficiencies that are unsurpassed by any other solution.”
Mine planning and scheduling is a multifaceted, labor-intensive process, complicated by a shortage of skilled staff and the need to quickly create and deploy mine plans that most accurately reflect a site’s geology. This process can be even more difficult due to inadequate data sharing across disparate business software systems, which delays or prevents informed decision-making. MineScape 5 takes a significant step forward with this release to meet the pressing needs of mining operations by moving geology and mine planning functionality onto a technology platform better suited to integrate business processes.
The newest release of MineScape delivers tools to improve mine-planning accuracy at the start of a project, speed the ability to update plans in the face of constantly changing field data, and optimise resource co-ordination to decrease costs associated with idle equipment.
Mincom MineScape 5 was developed as a platform to serve as a single source for information gathering across databases, geologic models and mining plans. Not only will users enjoy productivity gains from the modern and efficient user interface, but the most significant improvements are under the covers. MineScape uses a true client-server architecture, which enables multiple departments to work on a plan simultaneously, thus shortening the time from planning to deployment. This services-based architecture has been further enhanced in MineScape 5, exposing geological modelling, mine planning and mine scheduling data and functionality to third-party applications and standard business process orchestration technologies, enabling true business process integration and automation.
In addition to its enhanced architecture, MineScape 5 — which includes 15 modules — features:
Improved resource modeling and planning, which helps decrease costs associated with idle equipment, resources and transportation
A new, high-performance integrated 3D CAD system
Streamlined, flexible task-automation functionality that allows users to easily create tasks and build customised workflows. The capability to build workflows to automate mine planning processes has been a key feature of MineScape for many years, but is now accessible to end users
A new, best-in-class plotting engine.
Engineers can now quickly create and adapt geological models and mining plans based on constantly shifting field data. Through these advances, MineScape 5 delivers mine management for real-time analysis that simplifies workflows, from geology to engineering to the field.
“Mincom understands that mines are complex and dynamic environments, where significant value can be derived from the modelling and planning stages — but where significant value can also be lost in the operational stages from, for example, equipment failures, logistics problems or unexpected ore variations,” said Jessop. “For three decades, major mining companies have trusted Mincom as a viable partner to help anticipate and resolve these challenges. We have developed a comprehensive mining solution that covers all the key processes, from exploration to sale of final product. With MineScape 5, we are in an even better position to help our global customers optimize complex processes and improve business results.”
MineScape 5 will be generally available by end of March 2010. Mincom will also offer licensing for a module-management system enabling various mining departments and personnel, including geologists, engineers and surveyors, to use and share different modules.
Specific modules include Block Model, Core MineScape, Geological Database, Stratmodel, Dragline, Drill and Blast, Haulage Roads, Ring Design, Open Cut Design, Survey for Open Cut, Schedule and Underground Coal Design.