User experience and integration are the focus of XACT 1.8, the latest release of RungePincockMinarco’s (RPM) short term mine scheduling application. RPM states: “XACT has become the software of choice for short term mine planners across all commodities globally. In XACT 1.8, the focus is on usability and integration to ensure that planners can spend their time getting the best schedule for their mine.” Similar to the latest release of XPAC, RPM’s long term mine scheduling software, XACT now has a much deeper level of integration with Maptek’s popular geological design package, Vulcan.
“In XACT 1.8 there is a real focus on the user experience,” said Paul Beesley, RPM Chief Technology Officer. “Take the XACT Gantt chart for example, which is the heart of the application. XACT 1.8 sees a number of new features added to the user interface to make this tool even more spatially aware and intelligent. This is a key difference between XACT and other applications, particularly tools like Excel and Project which have no spatial connection which is critical to short term planning success.” In terms of the Vulcan integration he adds: “This is the integration of the two market leaders in this space. Vulcan is used across commodities around the world, as is XACT. Users have been asking for a more seamless integration of these two leading products and with XACT 1.8 we have delivered this for them.”
The integration improvements aren’t limited to design. XACT 1.8 expands on the popular workgroups functionally which allows multiple users to work on the same planning model at the same time across an operation. “Since we introduced this feature, it has been extremely popular with our users. The ability to tear down the planning silos and allow planners across production departments to work collaboratively on the same model has seen a major impact on productivity but more importantly, better short term plans being produced. In XACT 1.8, we have expanded this functionally introducing more features designed to make planning collaboration seamless.” This collaboration also stretches across planning horizons with a deeper level of schedule integration between medium and long term scheduling applications such as XPAC. “It’s no secret that to get the best planning results, you need to have a seamless flow across your planning horizons. This deeper integration ensures our clients can use the functionality that has been specifically designed for the horizon they work in, but without doing so in isolation and sacrificing planning collaboration.”
XACT 1.8 is also the first release of XACT that elevates short term planning into the enterprise. Utilising standard SAP production management, XACT for Enterprise “integrates marketing, maintenance and production planning seamlessly.” Extending this integration to include fleet management systems, XACT for Enterprise enables all mining functions to “finally use a single source of the truth across the enterprise” and allow deep analysis of plan and actual production, per shift and per machine. RPM believes that this integration delivers a real evolution to the way in which planners interact with the entire mining operation and introduces an entire new level of collaboration across departments. These integration and user interface improvements are designed to do one thing as Beesley explains: “In recent times mine planners have had to spend too much time as data managers, instead of using information to deliver the best mine plans. With XACT 1.8, we are putting the power back into the hands of the planners enabling them to do what they do best – engineer the best planning outcome for their mine.” XACT 1.8 is available as an upgrade for all existing users with valid maintenance contracts.