Tag Archives: RPMGlobal

RPMGlobal’s mining financial budgeting and forecasting tool receives an upgrade

IoT, Mining finance, Mining maintenance, Mining services, Mining software, , , , , ,

RPMGlobal has launched a “major upgrade release” to its mining financial modelling software XERAS Enterprise (XE®).

This release transforms the product with an updated user experience, improved database technology, performance and enhanced enterprise capabilities, the company said.

The release of XERAS Enterprise 3 also completes a multi-year program of work that encompasses a number of important back-end and front-end features, including a modern user interface and mobile application, the company said.

“The move to a server-orientated database provides significant benefits to the end-user by consolidating disparate data across the platform into one place,” RPMGlobal says. “Users can then quickly access their entire information database to make informed and educated financial decisions.”

XERAS Enterprise has 30 years of continuous product history behind it, according to the company, and remains a leading enterprise financial modelling tool for the mining industry.

RPM Chief Technology Officer, Paul Beesley, said: “The launch of XERAS Enterprise 3 was in line with the company’s strategy of releasing simplified, standardised and integrated solutions that seamlessly inter-operate with other vendors’ systems using our Enterprise Planning Framework.

“XERAS Enterprise 3 expands the breadth and depth of RPM’s financial modelling software, solidifying our position as the financial budgeting and forecasting software solution of choice for the mining sector. Our intention has always been to have a completely integrated enterprise suite of products and this latest update forms a critical part of that vision.”

XERAS Enterprise is able to turn an engineering-oriented mine plan into a complete financial plan with a precise schedule of labour, equipment, consumables and parts, according to the company. “Unlike other budgeting methods which use spreadsheets as their base, XERAS Enterprise provides trust in the numbers by standardising processes and removing manual data entry.”

Richard Mathews, RPM’s CEO, said: “XERAS Enterprise provides the governance and control miners require, while still allowing for the agility and scalability that other systems simply struggle to provide.”

XERAS Enterprise also has the capability to integrate directly with the customer’s Enterprise Resource Planning systems. RPMGlobal said: “While these business intelligence-based tools can complete some level of calculations, they typically do not have pre-existing calculation logic to budget at the detailed spatial level required in the mining industry.”

Mathews concluded: “In today’s mining environment, confidence in the systems and processes is so critical. You need to have standardisation and a shared modelling logic across the business and XERAS Enterprise provides exactly that.”

RPMGlobal counts up mining milestones while reflecting on its half century

Communications in mining, IoT, Mining industry recognition, Mining services, Mining software, , , , , ,

RPMGlobal says, over the last 50 years, its consulting division has clocked up over 16,000 mining studies, with its software segment registering more than 4,500 global users.

With the organisation celebrating 50 years of delivering consulting and advisory services to the global mining industry, it said it has grown into the largest publicly traded independent group of mining technical experts in the world. This is alongside being a “pre-eminent supplier of technical software to all sectors of the industry”.

Reflecting on the company’s 50th anniversary, RPMGlobal Chief Executive Officer and Managing Director, Richard Mathews, said the company had remained true to its founding principles – established with Pincock Allen & Holt five decades ago – of providing deep domain expertise combined with industry-leading technology to the global mining sector.

“What the company has achieved since the launch of its first mining solutions product, Talpac, more than 40 years ago is testament to our passionate employees and strong executive leadership who continue to drive the company forward,” he said.

“RPMGlobal is deeply embedded in the mining industry and we are very proud to be able to continue supporting our customer’s along their journey as the industry advances.”

More recently, the acceleration of new investments in both software development and in strategic software acquisitions have strengthened the company’s position as a leader across scheduling, maintenance, execution, simulation and financial budgeting and costing technology, it said.

This includes the recent addition of a cloud-hosted offering for its enterprise software solutions.

“We are investing in technology solutions that enable our customers to move data inside and outside their enterprises. Intelligent mining is the future of the industry, and RPMGlobal is creating new benchmarks for the software of the future,” Mathews said.

RPMGlobal’s Consultancy & Advisory division, meanwhile, is seeing increased demand for its independent assessment and financier due diligence services, the company said.

RPMGlobal to provide cloud-based offering for mining software solutions

Equipment maintenance, IoT, Mining equipment, Mining maintenance, Mining services, Mining software, , , ,

RPMGlobal has announced that several of its enterprise software solutions will now be available with a “cloud-hosted offering”.

RPM CEO and Managing Director, Richard Mathews, said moving its software solutions to the ‘cloud’ had always been a goal of the company. “However, we knew that to accomplish this we had to re-architect our suite of software products to enable us to offer this alternative method of delivery to our customers.

“Six years of development later and all the pieces are now in place for RPM to offer our solutions to customers through a hosted offering using a dedicated cloud delivery team as evidenced by our recent sale of a cloud-based solution to a North American customer.”

RPM’s products, which include software for mine design & reserving, mine enterprise planning, mine planning & scheduling, mining simulation, mining financial budgeting, mine operation, and mine, asset & equipment maintenance, have traditionally been deployed by its customers at their mine sites or corporate offices on desktops or servers.

“This approach meant there were some inherent restrictions with respect to accessing the software including the reliability, accessibility and speed of private network connections as well as hardware performance limiting the solutions true capabilities,” RPMGlobal said.

RPM’s cloud hosting solution enables users to access RPM software products, applications, solutions and their associated data from anywhere, anytime from inside a safe, secure and high-performance computing environment, according to the company.

Mathews said: “Whilst we can now offer our customers a cloud-based solution, we will also continue to offer our traditional delivery approaches. This is just another example of how our Intelligent Mining software suite of products gives miners, mining contractors and original equipment manufacturers around the world new, improved and high performing user experience options.

“Every company has different policies and visions for their computing environment, so a one-size-fits-all approach never works. There are certainly companies that want to make the transition to the cloud environment and RPM is ready to support them in this endeavour.”

Mathews concluded: “A successful cloud offering requires us to work closely with our customers and, to that end, we have established a separate team who are tasked with ensuring our customers make a smooth transition to the cloud.

“Our goal is to ensure these customers see quantifiable benefits from RPM’s previous investment made in ‘enterprising’ our products and the obvious flow-on benefits from operating in the ‘cloud’.

There is no doubt that providing software delivery via the Cloud enhances our customer’s businesses whilst improving our ability to service them through better availability, upgradeability and system up-time.”

Intelligent mine design solution on its way from RPMGlobal

Communications in mining, IoT, Mining services, Mining software, , , , , ,

RPMGlobal Holdings says it plans on releasing before the end of the year an innovative enterprise Intelligent mine Design (ID) solution, which will be fully integrated within RPM’s Intelligent Mining (IM) suite of products.

RPM’s CEO and Managing Director, Richard Mathews, said: “A lot of the products currently available in the market are based upon 30-year-old principles and the same underlying code base which has been adapted, reformed, tailored and customised over the years. Our approach to this new intelligent design solution is to start with a clean slate and build a solution utilising the latest enterprise architecture and technologies.”

The current focus of development for RPM’s ID solution is not on replacing the various entrenched third-party mine design solutions in the market, RPMGlobal said. “Rather, RPM’s focus has been to build on the decades of mining experience from its consulting and advisory businesses in order to produce a truly agile solution to support rapid scenario generation and optimal mine design decision making.”

Mathews said: “It is our strong belief that it is time the mining industry is provided with an intelligent, parametric design solution built upon, and utilising the very latest software technology and enterprise architecture.

“RPM has, to this point, elected not to develop its own mine design software and instead focused on ‘open integration’ with other third-party design applications. This approach was built on the assumption that third-party vendors would allow the free flow of data between applications and across the enterprise. The catalyst for RPM building its own design solution has been driven by the realisation that other suppliers to the industry have inherent limitations around enterprise interoperability. Furthermore, as the engineering process ‘starts with design’, a comprehensive RPM suite of planning products needs to include ID solutions in order to round out RPM’s established suite of integrated solutions.”

According to Mathews, RPM has been a data consumer of all of the established third-party mine design product vendors for decades. “We have ‘seen it all’ and, as a result, have a good understanding of the key ‘pain points’ currently being faced by mining engineers when using these traditional mine design solutions. Our goal with this new product suite is to address these key issues in a user-friendly and technically advanced manner. We will, of course, continue to work closely with the established third-party mine design software vendors and promote open standards with the intent of offering mining companies a real choice in a plug-and-play enterprise environment.”

RPMGlobal already has the architecture with their existing Enterprise Planning Framework and plenty of the required functionality from the acquisition of the rights to use the Mine 2-4D solution, it said. “The company’s intention is to now work with the industry to build an enterprise application that is fully open, interoperable and will harness the latest technologies bringing everything together into a simplified, enterprise, commercial-off-the-shelf product,” the company said.

Mathews concluded: “A number of our major customers who have seen the approach we are taking during pre-release demonstrations held under confidential terms are very excited with the progress to date and want to be involved in the development programme. Our advisory business, who are end users of third-party tools every day, are also providing invaluable input and insight into the product make-up.”

RPMGlobal XECUTEs another mine planning and scheduling software update

Automation, Base metals, Coal technology, Communications in mining, Energy minerals, Industrial minerals, Mining services, Mining software, Precious metals, Steel and iron ore, , , , , ,

XECUTE is the latest in RPMGlobal’s extensive line of mine planning and scheduling software solutions to receive an update.

XECUTE 1.10 builds on the core capabilities of XECUTE and features advanced upgrades to improve the live planning environment. This uses “enterprise enablement” to deliver real inter-departmental collaboration, according to RPMGlobal.

XECUTE was designed to bridge the gap between short-term planning and operational execution and has been adopted at several sites globally, RPMGlobal says.

The latest updates have seen the product integrated with MinVu, a suite of products the company acquired earlier this year.

When the MinVu acquisition was announced in December 2017, RPMGlobal said XECUTE would “be able to immediately utilise the MinVu integration adaptors to bring back data such as Equipment GPS coordinates, actual bucket positions, material movements, drill hole details, actual production rates and incorporate them into the production plan. This will extend the functionality of XECUTE whilst increasing the number of modules in the RPM suite.”

MinVu’s ability to pull this data directly from areas where it would otherwise remain in silos, means manual data processes are eliminated and users spend less time gathering and manipulating data and producing reports, according to RPMGlobal.

MinVu, itself, received an update last month focused on integration with the Australia-headquartered company’s Enterprise Planning Framework.

RPMGlobal has also started to build XECUTE into an augmented reality environment on iPads, iPhones and Android devices, according to Michael Baldwin, Executive General Manager of Product Strategy.

“This means you can access the information on mobile devices regardless of your physical location, which is often a problem with remote mining operations. This also allows for clear communication of the plan, including any updates to the plan,” he said.

The latest release also sees new scheduling functionality, including upgrades to the integrated product optimiser as well as user interface improvements that make the live planning a better overall user experience, according to the company.

XECUTE aims to minimises data entry and maximise planning value and adaptability by using automation to connect planning with operations, with 3D cross-team collaboration and integrated design and scheduling, according to RPM Global.

The system combines RPMGlobal’s proprietary Product Optimiser with a game-inspired 3D interface. Enterprise data feeds provide planners with the most up-to-date schedule inputs, allowing outputs to be automatically pushed to downstream systems and closing the loop between planning and execution.

RPMGlobal said: “The companies that have adopted XECUTE have realised the potential of a collaborative, live planning environment and the improvements this could bring to their mining operation.”

RPMGlobal goes mobile with latest release of AMT asset management software

Automation, Base metals, Communications in mining, Energy minerals, Equipment maintenance, Gem stone mining, Industrial minerals, IoT, Mining equipment, Mining maintenance, Mining services, Mining software, Precious metals, Steel and iron ore, , , , , ,

RPMGlobal has focused on mobility for the latest release of its fast-growing asset management solution, AMT.

In this release of AMT – version 8.16 – RPM has streamlined the inspection work process in the AMT mobile app making it far easier to manage in the field. With a mobile device, users can access, edit and close work orders while working remotely.

Work can be created automatically from strategy tasks within AMT or an integrated ERP. This process becomes a seamless execution of inspection and checklist work for the mobile user, according to RPM, improving the useability and productivity with an easy and practical process for the user.

Since AMT’s acquisition by RPMGlobal in 2016, the solution has been deployed on every continent other than Antarctica, according to the company.

Michael Baldwin, Executive General Manager of Product Strategy for RPM, said “Mobility is critical to ensuring that information is in the hands of the right people as it is needed. One thing we have found in recent years is that giving people information with context amplifies their decision-making capabilities and there is no better way than to have it in their hands in the field when they need it.”

AMT has the Dynamic Life Cycle Costing engine, and inbuilt intelligence that no other system contains, RPM says. The mobile app is completely integrated into this engine.

“This means that reliability and life cycle costing are linked, enabling users to not just identify, or predict, maintenance issues, but understand their impact and accurately model the correct resolution.”

Baldwin added: “Our aim with AMT mobile is to ensure that the end users have an easy way to perform their job. Their focus should be on completing the task at hand, not working out how they will enter it into a system at some point in the future.”

There are also several improvements and enhancements to usability and budgeting in AMT 8.16, in addition to support for SQL Server 2016 platform.

“Through RPMGlobal’s online support portal and forums, users are continuously providing feedback that can improve the product and features they would like added. With each release of software these key features are developed and then ready to use as software is upgraded,” the company said.

Baldwin said AMT formed a critical part of the company’s business and with every release more and more integration throughout the suite was added.

AMT 8.16 also provides tighter integration to products like MinVu, which is capturing real time data from operational systems such as FMS and health systems in the field.

“Information like machine hours and health sensor information is critical to an asset management system, and that is completely automated within the RPM offering,” the company said.

Baldwin concluded: “As mining moves towards a digital, and then intelligent world, automation of data capture, validation and transfer is crucial. Once that part is automated, your people can focus on what they need to do to improve rather than entering and manipulating data between systems.”

RPMGlobal updates MinVu with “true Intelligent Short Interval Control”

Automation, Base metals, Coal technology, Energy minerals, Equipment maintenance, High tech minerals, IoT, Mining equipment, Mining maintenance, Mining services, Mining software, Precious metals, Steel and iron ore, , ,

MinVu has received its first new release under the ownership of RPMGlobal, with the updates focused on integration with the Australia-headquartered company’s Enterprise Planning Framework (EPF).

The release of MinVu 5.0 will allow for a standardised exchange of information between RPM and third-party products, according to RPM, alleviating the sort of interoperability problems that companies are faced with today.

By rapidly pooling, validating, standardising, and integrating multiple stores of data into a powerful reporting platform, MinVu provides long- and short-term mine planning, mine-wide operational reporting, and analytics solutions, RPM said.

“Whilst integration with EPF directly benefits MinVu, the rest of RPM’s product suite are also enhanced as they are able to utilise all of the actuals data that has been captured and stored,” the company said.

Since the acquisition of MinVu by RPM in February this year, the product has become part of RPM’s suite of Enterprise solutions.

Michael Baldwin, Executive General Manager of Product Strategy for RPM, said: “With this first release we wanted to do something really big to demonstrate the value of the MinVu product. When you are talking about combining two software companies that have each been around for more than 25 years that has equated to a huge amount of development that all our products can now use to their advantage.”

Specific integration was completed with XECUTE and AMT, RPM’s short-term planning and asset management solution. Both XECUTE and AMT use machine-specific information captured and validated by MinVu.

MinVu currently has connectors to all major operational capture systems giving it the largest library of any solution commercially available, according to RPM. This includes all major fleet management systems and high precision GPS vendors.

The product also now includes a new module called Shift Manager which “delivers true Intelligent Short Interval Control (SIC) to the market”, RPM said. The company has been developing a SIC solution since 2016 after acquiring a shift management software product.

Baldwin said: “MinVu automatically provides the feedback of actuals data captured by operational systems and a rich decision support data to produce a SIC system. Shift Manager then highlights deviations from the plan and provides the tools for course corrections to ensure shift and long-term plan compliance.”

RPM said MinVu provides automation and, hence, a higher level of accuracy through the many operational data connectors and validation engines. It also has hundreds of reports and dashboards configurable from the off and delivered through web, mobile, email and other visual display methods.

Baldwin said: “The software was reliant on manual data and had some pretty basic reporting, so we immediately looked for ways to automate the entry of actuals information and deliver a rich analytic user experience. The combination of this previous acquisition, MinVu, EPF and our planning expertise is real a game changer in the short-term control space as nothing else in the market has the complete solution.”

On top of the integration development within this release, RPM has focused on the end user experience. The release has added more than 100 core improvements to address speed and usability giving the end user a far better experience.

“Last of all, MinVu 5.0 comes with a major cosmetic facelift to the user interface bringing a fresh, new feel to the software in line with RPM’s other products,” the company said.