Deswik has partnered with Alicanto Labs, associated with Universidad Adolfo Ibañez (UAI), in Chile, to release Deswik.GO, a strategic design and scheduling tool for open-pit mines.

This partnership, which started in 2016, was supported by a grant from the Chilean government and the success of the collaboration was also recognised through the awarding of the Chilean National Prize of Technologic Transfer in 2017.

UAI had previously developed an academic software application to solve the long standing Open-Pit Mine Production Scheduling (OPMPS) problem and the software was successfully used by a number of Tier 1 mining companies, according to Deswik.

“Deswik’s experience in delivering quality commercial mine planning software means that these innovations have been integrated into an easy to use, comprehensive package that will enable the entire industry to realise maximum value from their deposits,” the company said.

Deswik.GO allows strategic mine planners to rapidly optimise the mine shape, phases and sequence for both greenfield sites and existing operations. The fast evaluation time allows planners to evaluate multiple options and see the lifetime effects of planning decisions and thereby determine the mine plan that will deliver the maximum value, the company said.

Supported by their existing in-house optimisation experts and developers, Deswik.GO allows the user to:

• Rapidly generate optimised pit shells that take into account the time value of money and dynamically determine the best destination for a parcel of material;
• Generate mining phases using mathematical techniques;
• Optimise the schedule of the generated or pre-designed phases;
• Optimise the destination schedule for a mining schedule that has previously been determined; and
• Analyse the outputs of the schedules with integrated reports and visualiser.

Deswik.GO Product Manager, Catherine Mortimer, said the application made it possible for planners to visualise the cascade of consequences that could result from a planning decision, or a variation to an existing plan.

Historically, obtaining such insights would have been time consuming and expensive – and called for the use of multiple software programs.

“The work that mine planners do involves multi-million and billion dollar decisions,” Mortimer said. “Deswik.GO is a single solution that makes it easier for them to evaluate and audit those decisions.”

Deswik.GO is interoperable with Deswik.CAD and other modules in the Deswik range. Extra value can be unlocked by pairing Deswik.GO with Deswik.SPD – its new automated pit design module – to rapidly generate phase designs with ramps, benches and berms, the company said. It can also be used on a standalone basis.

Deswik Managing Director, Matt Chilcott, said Deswik.GO was evidence of Deswik’s commitment to helping mine planners maximise the value of their projects.

“Our focus is on developing solutions and tools which enable data driven decision making across the mining landscape,” Chilcott said.

“The Deswik team has deep knowledge and lived experience of the mining sector and we continue to translate that into technologies that boost productivity and enable companies to achieve the optimum return on investment.”