Mintec says its MineSight Stope will make life significantly easier for planners seeking flexibility and control in the design and conceptual-level scheduling of underground stopes. “The software will play a key role in the continued expansion of MineSight capabilities in underground design and scheduling. MineSight Stope handles tasks such as block economic value computation, stope slicing, scheduling, and reserve reporting. Planners will enjoy a quick, easy-to-use tool for preliminary stope design, conceptual level scheduling, and sensitivity analysis.
MineSight Stope generates full block stope shapes based on a minimum stope size and block economic values using the Maximum Value Neighborhood (MVN) method or the MineSight Stope Algorithm (MSA). Blocks belonging to each stope are identified by a stope number item in the block model. The stopes are then scheduled based on scheduling parameters and economics provided by the user. An NPV for the potential underground project is computed.
“MineSight Stope is a significant addition to MineSight’s underground engineering toolset,” said Mintec President John Davies. It provides a tool for quick preliminary evaluation of underground mining, using only block model information. The results can be used directly or as guidelines for more detailed design and evaluation.”
Mintec recently released MineSight Atlas, MineSight Sub-Blocking, and the soon to be released Decline Design Tool, three products with significant implications for underground mining. MineSight Atlas allows true calendar-based scheduling of underground development activities, including stoping and backfilling. MineSight Sub-Blocking will improve block model visualisation and accounting. MineSight users can represent any detailed geology clearly with each parent block able to be sub-blocked to standard child-size blocks. The Decline Design tool helps design a near optimal path from a start point to an end point with bearings that match the required constraints.
Coming soon is MineSight Room and Pillar, which solves the design and engineering challenges involved in this complex system of underground mining.
“MineSight continues to be the software of choice for underground mines, but 2013 is a particularly good year for underground miners using MineSight,” said Davies.
