MICROMINE says it has expanded its suite of intuitive mine planning tools, with a significant upgrade pack to be released next month.

The new features to its Micromine solution “give users greater power to capture, manage and interpret exploration and production data so they can optimise their operations”, Paul Hooykaas – Micromine Chief Product Strategy Office, said.

The enhancements focus on the software’s design tools offering greater flexibility, power and speed for mine designers, planners and engineers in both underground and surface mining contexts.

More than 12 new features in the MM2020.5 upgrade give users faster and more intuitive control over underground ring drill and blast design, enabling planners to use ring design tools and run calculations on as-drilled (actual) holes, while comparing them with planned holes. This enables designs to quickly adapt to changes in the field and identify drilling inefficiencies and improve design protocols.

There are six new features that have been added to Micromine’s surface drill and blast toolbox, which include upgrades to design and reporting tools for blast plots. A new interactive tool has been released, meanwhile, to mirror the terrain of blast face and speed up the process of creating blasthole patterns within dig blocks of varying shapes.

Grade control and wireframing tools have also benefitted from revamped workflow features, according to MICROMINE. This gives open-pit planners “deeper insight into the value of each dig block”, it said. Users can produce simple reports that indicate ore and waste estimates, or comprehensive reports broken down by material classification bins, according to the company. “Dynamic report updates enable faster reserve evaluation and integrate seamlessly with wireframes for subsequent planning activities such as scheduling,” it said.

The new functions are fully integrated into Micromine’s leading exploration and 3D mine design software, which is used in over 90 countries.

Hooykaas continued: “This is a substantial update and reflects our commitment to rolling out cutting-edge technology that helps our mining clients become more successful and stay ahead of the competition.

“We are working hard to ensure our users have complete visibility of their project and they will now have even more power to explore, test and optimise multiple scenarios, so the best options can be implemented in the field.”

MICROMINE has a software suite that, it says, supports every phase of the mining lifecycle – from geological exploration and data management to resource estimation, 3D mine design, planning and production control.