Tag Archives: mining software

Vela adds geostatistics leader Geovariances to mining software mix

Mining mergers and acquisitions, Mining software, Mining techniques, , ,

Vela Software Group, owner of Datamine, acQuire, Minemax, Centric and Snowden-Optiro, has announced the acquisition of Geovariances, a leader in geostatistics with over 30 years’ experience.

Headquartered in Fontainebleau, France, Geovariances is the developer of Isatis.neo, a leading solution for complex geospatial challenges in mining, oil & gas, nuclear decommissioning, contaminated soil and air & water quality, Vela said.

Dylan Webb, CEO of Datamine, said: “The Geovariances acquisition is a highly complementary addition to Vela’s mining software portfolio. Adding the renowned Isatis.neo application to our natural resources and environmental modelling solutions will deliver even greater value to customers.

“The opportunity to work more closely with the Geovariances team will enable us to deliver the most advanced geostatistics solutions to our customers and constantly incorporate the latest research.”

Geovariances CEO, Jean-Paul Roux, said: “By joining Vela Software, Geovariances will become closer to Vela-owned companies operating in the mining industry, such as Datamine, acQuire, Minemax, Centric and Snowden-Optiro. We are confident that this connection with firms similar to ours will allow us to develop synergies that will benefit our customers. We’ll also benefit from Vela’s presence in 20 countries to provide our clients with more efficient local support.”

Micromine adds three new tools to exploration, resource estimation solution

Mineral exploration, Mining services, Mining software, , , , , ,

Micromine says its exploration and resource estimation solution has just got better with its latest version, Micromine Origin 2022.5.

The enhanced functionality of the company’s flagship product is led by three brand new tools to equip exploration and resource geologists with even greater confidence in their geological decisions.

At the click of a few buttons, users can improve the accuracy of their resource estimates by integrating real deposit geometry into their estimations with the new Structural Trend tool, the company said.

The new Vein Network tool, meanwhile, facilitates all veins to be modelled in a single step, mitigating the typical time-consuming macros and manual boolean operations. This provides an ideal solution, especially when modelling vein deposits with multiple loads or complex intrusion-style deposits, according to Micromine.

Due to the high risk for over or underestimation, Micromine Origin 2022.5’s new Indicator Grade Shell tool mitigates estimation risk and prevents domain errors by providing an unbiased and accurate method to represent grade domains, the company added.

Micromine’s Chief Strategy and Product Officer, Kiril Alampieski, said: “Micromine has always been the tool of choice for explorers worldwide. Therefore, a significant focus on the 2022.5 release has been on strengthening our geological and resource modelling tools to ensure we remain at the forefront of mining software.

“The three key new tools, amongst the other new tools featured in this release, are instrumental in making life easier. Essentially, we want geologists to be able to prospect smarter and model faster.”

There’s also a boost in performance efficiency with Micromine Origin 2022.5, including 3D GIS, block modelling and charting, the company says.

“Regarding wireframes, there’s a 90% loading and unloading speed improvement, and wireframe sets with shaded draw styles now render over 100 times faster,” Alampieski said. “Furthermore, the Implicit Modelling tool’s ‘points per sphere’ are auto calculated, resulting in up to 65% performance improvements and more precise outputs.”

FLSmidth to accelerate MissionZero ambition with AVEVA partnership

Automation, Equipment maintenance, IoT, Mining equipment, Mining services, Mining software, Sustainable mining, , ,

FLSmidth and AVEVA, a global leader in industrial software driving digital transformation and sustainability, have signed a global partnership to deliver, the OEM says, cutting-edge digitally enabled solutions and services to the mining industry.

The agreement will accelerate the digitalisation of mining operations and allow miners to benefit from improved performance and productivity globally, according to FLSmidth.

With the new partnership, FLSmidth will work with AVEVA, using its technology to securely integrate and provide various digitally enabled services to customers. The AVEVA PI System will serve as the central digital platform across FLSmidth’s operations. The vast majority of large mining companies around the world use the PI System to support data-driven decisions today and can now leverage their existing investments to gain new advanced insights from FLSmidth, the company added.

The partnership will accelerate FLSmidth’s delivery of its MissionZero ambition of sustainable productivity through connected digital services by leveraging AVEVA industry software and large customer install base.

AVEVA PI System’s robust data infrastructure collects, enhances and shares information about operational processes across equipment and operating systems in real time, from edge to cloud, FLSmidth explained. With its smart product portfolio and process and service knowledge, FLSmidth can bring new insights to the data to allow mine operators to optimise key areas across the flowsheet, for example, in predictive maintenance, process optimisation, improved recovery and resource efficiency, it added.

Mikko Tepponen, Chief Digital Officer at FLSmidth, said: “The partnership means AVEVA and FLSmidth can accelerate the customer’s digital journey with a more secure, standardised and connected mine. It is a significant step that enables miners to move from the optimisation of individual pieces of equipment to full flowsheet efficiency: this is where the major benefits of digital solutions lie.

“We are extremely excited about what we will soon offer customers in terms of improve uptime, operational efficiency, productivity and, of course, sustainability.”

Peter Herweck, CEO of AVEVA, said: “AVEVA and our strategic partner Schneider Electric have deep experience in developing data-driven innovation to enable safety, sustainability and profitability across the global mining industry. Our new partnership with FLSmidth will accelerate the transition to more sustainable mining operations by integrating world-leading processes and energy technologies for enhanced asset performance at every level.”

FLSmidth and AVEVA will immediately begin to integrate various AVEVA technologies and solutions with the FLSmidth IoT platform and smart product portfolio. A select number of customers have already agreed to form part of a pilot project around equipment availability and optimisation, with customer value expected to be proven in a short timeframe, it said.

RPMGlobal brings mineral reserve calculations into the cloud

Mineral exploration, Mining software, ,

RPMGlobal (RPM) has announced another Software as a Service (SaaS) product offering that, it says, provides mining companies with the capability to undertake mine reserve calculations in a cloud environment.

RPM continues the acceleration of its technology suite to cloud technology following the launch of Haulage as a Service (HaaS), with Reserving as a Service (RaaS). The product has been co-developed with a Tier One mining organisation and is accessible via a cloud-based API.

As a true cloud native application, RaaS takes the resource intensive reserving process and places it in a cloud environment, leveraging the power of cloud computing and making it accessible from anywhere, RPM says. It can be deployed in either a secure public or private cloud infrastructure.

Users can upload block models and multi-stage pit designs in a variety of formats directly to the cloud. After providing some basic information such as material definitions, bench configuration and desired block size, the service will split the designs into mining shapes, returning a 3D solid of each block and a detailed breakdown of the reserves those shapes contain. RaaS leverages the reserve modelling capability within RPMGlobal’s Reserver product which, RPM says, has become the industry standard for reserving over the last 20 years.

The decision to configure RPMGlobal’s design and reserving package into a cloud-based application coincides with more operations choosing to leverage the extraordinary benefits of cloud-based computing.

RPMGlobal Chief Executive Officer, Richard Mathews said he envisioned a wide array of applications that will benefit from being able to calculate reserves in a cloud environment via an API.

“The real power of our cloud-based services such as RaaS, is that they can scale themselves based on real-time computing demand, allowing complex reserving calculations to be solved in a fraction of the time a traditional desktop application would require,” he said. “The move to the cloud is really changing ways we are able to solve complex problems.

“Modern mining operations require applications and platforms that can speak natively with cloud applications and their environments to achieve a holistic understanding of their digital mining data and that is what we are enabling at RPMGlobal.”

Mathews said the future of RPMGlobal’s innovative software products was as SaaS applications.

As the suite of cloud-based and SaaS solutions continues to grow so does the library of microservices underpinning the software. Microservices form part of a cloud native architectural approach where a single application is made up of many independently deployable smaller components.

“The microservice library is really exciting and is being used more and more, particularly in our mobile solutions,” Mathews said. “Our users are telling us that mobility and cloud architecture are both big priorities for them, so it is important that we are delivering in line with their needs.”

acQuire spruces up EnviroSys brand ahead of major software release

Environmental, Mining services, Mining software, Sustainable mining, , , , ,

acQuire says it has been working behind the scenes to unveil a fresh new look for its environmental data management solution, EnviroSys, with the new logo aligning the software with the acQuire brand and representing a renewed focus on simplicity and elegance.

It’s more than just a lick of paint, according to the company, with acQuire having spruced, tidied up and restyled the solution. It will also be adding some improvements to the environmental data management software in an upcoming release.

Stuart van de Water, acQuire’s Environmental Leader, is excited to see the improvements launch with the next software release, EnviroSys 9.

“The new look EnviroSys reflects our aim to ensure our environmental data management capability goes from strength to strength,” he said. “Our goal is to make sure EnviroSys continues to be one of the best environmental data management systems on the market.”

The next version of EnviroSys is due in April 2022 and is the culmination of EnviroSys team’s efforts to improve the software, including:

  • Unifying the user experience for one consistent way to access EnviroSys;
  • Enhancing the visibility of data feeds and improving data loading so you have quicker access to environmental compliance data for your downstream processes;
  • Updating the user interface with a fresh new look and easier navigation;
  • Streamlining and standardising user security with an industry-standard, cloud-based licence management platform; and
  • Enhancing the learning and support ecosystem, with a redeveloped help system and knowledge base

acQuire’s EnviroSys software is focused on quality and compliance. It allows customers to store, manage and access any type of environmental data, whether it’s collected from a lab or logger, out in the field or in the office. EnviroSys, the company says, provides complete transparency and ensures you can always answer the question: “Are we compliant right now?”

RPMGlobal looks to maximise mining company NPV with Enterprise Optimiser

Mining finance, Mining services, Mining software, , , , ,

RPMGlobal has delivered a brand-new optimisation solution with the release of a multi-site, multi-period optimiser that, it says, evaluates capital investment strategies and mine plans of multiple operations to maximise the net present value (NPV) of an entire mining organisation.

RPM’s Enterprise Optimiser has been built from the ground up, leveraging and building upon algorithms, libraries, and intellectual property within RPM’s software suite, the company explained. It has been designed so that EO can look at a mining organisation in its entirety and inform capital investment decisions while also optimising the strategic mining schedule.

The company explained: “Current offerings generally look to optimise the NPV of individual mining operations, but they fail to recognise that those sites are often connected. Optimising connected mining operations is essential to ensuring the use of shared infrastructure and competing contractual requirements (that impact each operation differently) are taken into consideration. This needs to happen because the best option for one operation does not necessarily provide the best outcome for the organisation as a whole.”

RPM’s Enterprise Optimiser is capable of handling very large, multi-operation models and can blend products not only at site but also at other points along the route, including the port, according to RPM. It achieves this very quickly, making it possible to study more alternatives to maximise the organisation’s NPV and production capacity.

RPM’s Chief Executive Officer, Richard Mathews, says the product solves a challenge that all multi-site organisations have attempted to solve for decades.

“Our new Enterprise Optimiser optimises the key objectives of the organisation across individual mine sites and considers both the mining and processing operations at the same time,” he said. “This is critical in understanding not only how the individual mine plans are related but also where the organisation gets the greatest return for shareholders from their invested capital.”

Users can evaluate multiple strategic options across an organisation including potential capital investments, according to the company.

“What makes EO so powerful is the way we combine all of the different factors into a single model that looks at the entire problem across multiple mine sites,” Mathews said. “It can assess the final products being exported from one or more ports while considering all of the logistics between the mine and the port.”

EO doesn’t look to just optimise across a single period or the short-term horizon, but rather to optimise across the entire life of the mine in one go. It does this for each operation simultaneously, including the mine schedule and processing plant. Throughout the process it considers the operational structure of the company so it can maximise the NPV across the whole organisation, RPM says.

“EO is entirely process-driven, removing the need for complex scripting while providing ease of use and visualisation of the optimised schedule,” RPM said. “This process-driven approach makes it very simple to configure reserve models and then model key factors such as mining rates, costs and revenues. The user can define complex sequencing rules and constraints while defining objectives and product specifications. EO then allows users to analyse and visualise scheduling outcomes which will determine the optimum NPV.”

EO can be used across any commodity, mining method and any number of sites, the company claims. While it is a standalone product and can be used to optimise schedules and reserves from most mining packages, there are integration advantages when paired with RPM’s scheduling solutions, RPM said.

EO is integrated with RPM’s Enterprise Planning Framework (EPF) with users having access to features such as the model repository so that they can share and edit models. EPF also has the industry’s largest independent equipment library, corporate governance and enterprise security among its numerous advantages, RPM explained.

RPMGlobal bolts on new environmental features to XPAC scheduling software

Environmental, Mining software, Sustainable mining, , ,

RPMGlobal has released the latest version of its scheduling software, XPAC Solutions, with some of the notable features including disturbance reporting and scheduling, landform surface definition, support for battery trucks, multiple independent calendars, bi-directional Integration with RPM’s Schedule Optimisation Tool (SOT) and many more commodity-specific enhancements.

The latest version is focused explicitly on significant features requested by and developed with XPAC Solutions users globally, the company said.

According to Richard Mathews, RPM’s Chief Executive Officer, this release of XPAC Solutions is the most significant in the past several years.

“We committed a lot of resources to this release,” he said. “Coming off the major investment we made in performance and usability in the previous release, we had a very solid platform to introduce these new industry-leading features, without comprising speed, quality or accuracy.”

One of the most significant additions to the software suite is the environmental features allowing for disturbance reporting and scheduling with enhanced spatial zoning. This is ideal for reporting areas that are disturbed by mining and dumping within key areas, such as water catchment and habitat of specific animal species and constraining those areas within the schedule, according to the company.

Along the same vein of environmental enhancements is the addition of battery-electric truck modelling. This latest release provides full support for battery trucks including the ability to define which road segments can be used to recharge batteries. Therefore, users can evaluate whether adequate recharge provision has been made throughout the schedule by providing net energy usage information.

The addition of multiple independent calendars will also appeal to many users of the solutions, the company claims. Schedule and Product Optimiser (PO) can now use different calendars, including those with variable period durations. This provides enormous flexibility and further strengthens what is already the leading optimisation offering in the market.

Bi-directional integration with SOT is also one of the major new features of this latest release. This integration uses an API eliminating the need for file transfers between the products. Users can pass reserves and dependencies directly from XPAC to SOT so they can explore different strategies to maximise the net present value or several other parameters of the schedule. Once a schedule is optimised the results are integrated back into XPAC Solutions to be visualised, analysed and published.

Another new feature allows users of the open-cut coal solutions to import final landform surfaces allowing control of dragline and shovel dumps. Schedules will reflect landform restrictions once the permitted dump height in a particular area has been reached. The resultant schedules are now optimised from a trucking hours and final landform perspective.

Other additions in specific solutions are the support for alternative mining methods within the underground metals solution, simultaneous mining and backfill of pits within the open-pit metals solution, conveyor and strip design import improvements for coal operations as well as improvements to vertical progression for oil sands.

3GSM tackles drill comms, pattern analysis in latest BlastMetriX UAV blasting software update

Communications in mining, Explosives and blasting, IoT, Mining software, , , , , ,

3GSM GmbH, a developer of software to optimise blasting and reduce inherent environmental issues, has announced several updates to its flagship BlastMetriX UAV software that, the company says, improves communication with smart drills, offers face profiling enhancements and delivers more sophisticated drill pattern analysis.

Robert McClure, President of Robert A McClure (RAM) Inc of Powell, Ohio, an international blast and engineering consulting firm that provides service, support and training for BlastMetriX UAV, said: “3GSM works closely with its blasting customers to adapt to new challenges faced in the field and improve blast optimisation. Customers with an active update licence automatically receive these new features inside the BlastMetriX software, or they can be ordered separately.”

The enhanced drill pattern analysis tool provides heat mapping of drilled borehole deviations for simple visualisation of differences between “as planned” and “as drilled” patterns, while semi-automatic mapping of linear rock mass features is imported into the blast plan. By providing enhanced burden and spacing information, the software allows users to adjust explosive amounts in each borehole to account for irregularities, according to the company. “This is a great tool for a company’s key performance indicator program,” McClure said. “The software captures information from each blast and allows users to go back and review historical data to correct issues in the field.”

Updates to the IREDES (International Rock Excavation Data Exchange Standard) interface improves two-way data communication between BlastMetriX UAV and smart drills. It now allows for import of measure for drilling data like drill penetration rate and air pressure to map the subsurface geology of the borehole. At a quick glance, the software shows the geology and burdens from borehole top to bottom out to the free face. The program is compatible with all major drilling equipment manufacturers, according to the company.

Incorporating the ShapeMetriX system for generating and assessing 3D images, new geological mapping integration allows users to better visualise dips, strikes, seams and voids throughout the drilling pattern. The software can characterise irregularities in the face, which are projected back through the borehole. This allows for more precise loading of the borehole and improves blast safety.

In another update, the underground volumetric measurements tool inside ShapeMetriX now provides the determination of precise volumes in a “generalised” manner, based off captured subsequent tunnel faces and perimeters.

With the aid of aerial targets or standard BlastMetriX targets as reference points, the software imports images from a calibrated DSLR camera or unmanned aerial vehicles to quickly, safely and accurately capture 3D face profiles for enhanced visualisation of the blast area. Multiple data-rich overlapping images generate hundreds of thousands of data points for accurately characterising typography of the surveyed area and creating a 3D face profile.

BlastMetriX UAV gives technicians the confidence the blast will perform as designed to mitigate fly-rock issues, high air overpressures, excessive vibration, poor fragmentation, sub-par cast, loss of grade control and wall damage, the company says.

“Through blast design optimisation using BlastMetriX UAV, operations can realise significant benefits including improved fragmentation, higher crusher throughput and lower drilling man power requirements,” 3GSM said. “The scalable BlastMetriX UAV software allows companies to integrate as much or as little technology as required.”

Geovariances leverages Isatis.neo batch capacity, Python scripting for ‘infinite capabilities’

Mineral exploration, Mining services, Mining software, , , , , , , , ,

Sometimes, turnkey software solutions only partially fulfill a company’s needs and do not always meet its requirements; the company may want to go beyond standard jobs by customising specific processing route. This could see a company engage software developers to come up with in-house solutions that answer their needs – something that is challenging to maintain over the years.

To help clients get over this issue, Geovariances, the global provider of geostatistics-based software solutions, puts a significant part of its development efforts into the customisation capabilities of its flagship software product Isatis.neo.

Isatis.neo implements two powerful functionalities in that respect: recording a series of tasks and their parameters – the so-called batch capacity – and Python scripting for completing the data processing and interpretation workflow.

The combination of batch capacity and Python scripting gives the software almost infinite capabilities, according to the company, permitting the user to go beyond the geostatistical calculations: preparing company resource estimate/categorisation workflows, developing optimisation-based solutions, and more advanced algorithmic approaches for a more powerful use of the software.

Using Isatis.neo batch features, users select tasks, parametrise them, insert loops and conditional statements to set up workflows and tune them to the orebody specificities. Instructions are recorded into batch files that can be launched later on, either interactively from Isatis.neo or as a background process from a command-line interface or a third-party software solution using Python, to automatically rerun the whole task sequence with new data.

Isatis.neo’s Python functionalities allow further process customization, with users able to generate a wide range of variables or execute operations by calling on a wide choice of external Python libraries and functions.

During its last user meetings, held in January, Geovariances presented two of its achievements related to these capabilities.

The first case study was about the work completed for a multinational mining and metallurgy company.

This company called on Geovariances’ expertise to establish a global processing workflow to update the resources of one of its projects: several deposits with similar geometrical, geological and spatial characteristics. A few month’s work was required to define, test and validate the routine on one deposit. Another week was enough to run the routine on the other deposits and get the expected resource estimates. In addition to the considerable time the company’s resource team saved, they also gained insight from the batch file processes that mirrored the expertise of Geovariances’ consultants. The quick model update in the subsequent phases of exploration, or even excavation, is another advantage of this batch system.

The second case study was about the work Geovariances completed for Alcoa S.A. The aim was to rebuild the resource estimation workflows the company set up with the precursor of Isatis.neo, Isatis, into Isatis.neo and make the update routines even easier for the user. The complex original workflow, developed by Alcoa’s resource team, involved ordinary and indicator kriging and geostatistical simulation and resource classification. The batch files were prepared, incorporating Python coding for specific operations not yet available in the software and importing search and variogram parameters from csv files using the Pandas library. In the end, Alcoa had a set of standard batch files that could be used for any deposit, but, at the same time, customised according to its needs.

RPMGlobal acquires three mine planning optimisation software products from MIRARCO

Mine ventilation, Mining mergers and acquisitions, Mining services, Mining software, , , , , , , ,

RPMGlobal has announced a further software product acquisition after entering a collaborative research partnership with Canada-based MIRARCO.

The agreement gives RPM ownership of three mine planning optimisation software products that will strengthen its Design and Scheduling product suites, in particular the SOT product, RPM said.

The acquisition is part of a three-year collaborative research partnership with MIRARCO, an innovative solution research provider for the mining industry and research arm of Laurentian University based in Sudbury, Canada.

MIRARCO was instrumental in the original research leading to the development of RPM’s Schedule Optimisation Tool (SOT). SOT, along with Attain and Surface SOT, were products acquired by RPM as part of its July 2020 acquisition of Revolution Mining Software.

RPM CEO and Managing Director, Richard Mathews, said: “We are very proud that MIRARCO continues to place their trust in RPM to further develop and commercialise these important optimisation programs.”

One of MIRARCO’s core research domains is furthering the research and development of decision support software for the mining industry.

MIRARCO has developed three separate but complementary underground mine planning optimisation products, which RPM has, under this agreement, agreed to acquire and commercialise. These products extend and complement the functionality of RPM’s mine optimisation software solutions in the areas of Advanced Valuation, GeoSequencing, and Ventilation, it said.

As part of a strategic multi-year collaboration arrangement, RPM and MIRARCO will continue to work together on research and development projects that deliver demonstrable and innovative solutions for the mining industry.

The Advanced Valuation Module (AVM) facilitates the generation of optimised underground mine plans that can deal with the effects of uncertain product prices and ore grades. The mine planner specifies distributions for product prices over the mine’s life and ore grades. AVM will then optimise the life-of-mine schedule, maximising the operation’s net present value (NPV).

The GeoSequencing Module (GSM) facilitates the generation of optimised underground mine schedules adhering to stope sequencing constraints motivated by geotechnical considerations. The mine planner selects the rules for stope sequencing and GSM automatically generates alternative sets of stope-to-stope dependencies, or GeoSequencing scenarios, while enforcing the selected rules. The output is an NPV-optimised life-of-mine schedule based on the mine’s geotechnical considerations.

The Ventilation Constraint Module (VCM) generates optimised underground mine schedules based on ventilation constraints. Through interaction with a ventilation solver, VCM automatically generates airflow-based constraints on the equipment for each ventilation district. Using these constraints, VCM generates optimised NPV life-of-mine schedules that are feasible from a ventilation perspective.

Mathews added: “This acquisition is strategically important for two reasons. First, it further supports our commitment to delivering real innovation to the industry through the ongoing investment and collaboration with the leading minds within key research and development institutes such as MIRARCO. Secondly, it continues our commitment to owning and further investing in the development of innovative strategic mine optimisation solutions particularly for our underground mining clients.

“With the completion of this transaction, RPM is now the proud owner of nine underground mine planning software optimisation products that are used by software suppliers to the mining industry particularly in the underground space to build optimised underground life of mine plans.”

Mathews said the company started acquiring and developing underground mine optimisation products back in August 2017, starting with the acquisition of MineOptima (borne out of research of the Network Optimisation Group at the University of Melbourne) and then in July 2020 with the acquisition of Revolution Mining (borne out of research of MIRARCO) and now with MIRARCO once again.

Dr Nadia Mykytczuk, Interim President and CEO of MIRARCO and Executive Director of the Goodman School of Mines, said: “RPM’s global reach and drive to deliver innovative technology solutions for the mining industry make them a perfect industry partner for MIRARCO. We are looking forward to building on our already strong partnership and collaboration with RPM over the next three years and beyond.”