Tag Archives: Steve Mundell

acQuire future-proofs GIM Suite with latest update

acQuire has advanced its flagship GIM Suite product with a new release that, it says, includes a raft of brand-new features plus a transition to a new cloud-based licence model.

GIM Suite 5 has been built for the future of data management, with the aim to improve the way geologists and miners manage their geological data, acQuire explained. The new release streamlines data collection from the field to sample submission and provides a way to seamlessly manage their entire field data collection workflow across mobile, desktop and web.

Steve Mundell, Director of Product at acQuire, says the company is focused on continually evolving the GIM Suite software to ensure miners are always working with the most powerful geological data management tools on the market.

“We’ve focused on providing dynamic and interactive tools for geologists to match the way they work,” Mundell said. “GIM Suite 5’s new interface is designed for drill hole logging and sampling across a range of drilling methods, from exploration to production, whether you’re collecting data in remote field locations or logging in the core shed.

“It gives you visual feedback in real time when logging geological observations and sample intervals within a graphical log in web or mobile. You no longer need to use multiple software tools for different logging scenarios.”

Geologists working with geoscientific data can use GIM Suite 5 for Reverse Circulation, air rotary drilling or Rotary Air Blast, air core or diamond drilling methods.

Workers in a remote environment with limited or no connectivity, can capture drillhole data using the acQuire Arena mobile app. Alternatively, if they are working online, they can capture data on any Windows device through a web browser.

GIM Suite 5 smoothly integrates all the steps from mobile data capture in the field to creating sample despatch reports on the web, acQuire said. Users can plan, capture, import, monitor and despatch.

“This results in a fast, efficient, and accurate way to manage geological data across an entire field collection workflow,” Mundell explained.

A new web-based tool, Data Discovery, enables senior geologists or anyone on a geology team to discover and access all data stored in GIM Suite.

“We want to give miners a way to dig deeper into their geological data, when they need to” Mundell said. “You can rapidly construct complex queries in our web interface. The data discovery tool lets you create complex data queries and views with a ‘drag and drop’ tool. You can construct queries, filter or aggregate data across data views, and create on the fly calculations.”

Business rules and other parameters governing the quality and integrity of geological data are controlled from a central location in a new, web-based data definition library, acQuire says. This simplifies how data definitions are managed and allows users to apply business rules consistently across all methods of data capture. Configuration times for new projects are also reduced, with users able to rely on previously created data definitions.

With this release, acQuire has overhauled the way it licences its technology to ensure everyone who needs GIM Suite has easier access to the product, it said.

“We’re introducing a simplified and more flexible licence model for all users of GIM Suite technology with this release,” Mundell said. “GIM Suite licences are now managed from a cloud-based licence platform, making it easier to access and manage team licences.”

Kinross Gold and acQuire collaborate on new blasthole sampling app

Kinross Gold has collaborated with acQuire on the development of a new mobile data capture solution for its GIM Suite 4.2 release.

The gold miner was looking for a mobile solution for blasthole sampling it can trust and, as a long-time GIM Suite user, it welcomed the opportunity to work with acQuire on this new development, acQuire said.

“It meant Kinross Gold could provide direct feedback on how the acQuire Arena mobile app was enhanced for blasthole sampling for open-pit grade control,” the company said.

For acQuire, meanwhile, the collaboration resulted in an industry-specific solution geared towards the data challenges experienced in every day mining.

A team from Kinross’ Round Mountain open-pit grade control operations, in Nevada, USA, participated in the project. This team consisted of key stakeholders involved in the site’s data systems. The team not only provided input into requirements but also engaged in the beta testing phase of GIM Suite 4.2 and the Arena mobile app to ensure the solution worked for grade control requirements, acQuire said.

Round Mountain mine site in Nevada, USA (Credit: Kinross-Gold)

Ian Dickie, Senior Geologist at Kinross Gold, said: “Working with acQuire offered a unique chance to provide feedback directly to acQuire developers regarding the design of this application.

“This created an opportunity for Kinross to provide insight into real-world requirements for both the application design and the user experience.”

Steve Mundell, acQuire’s Director of Product, said having a collaborator like Kinross Gold provided guidance from an industry perspective during the product development phase.

“We took their needs into consideration along with all the other knowledge we have gathered around the problem of sampling open-pit blastholes,” he said. “Having a real-life application of the Arena mobile app as part of our testing showed us firsthand what worked well and where we needed to refine the software.”

Challenge: data capture for open-pit grade control

The Kinross Gold team wanted to move to a better way of working when capturing blasthole samples. It currently logs on paper, a method deemed inefficient and prone to error, acQuire said.

The goal was to find a digital solution to speed up the time it takes data logged in the pit to become available to downstream grade control processes like modelling and ore blocking.

To achieve the broader goal, Kinross was interested in several capabilities:

  • Ability to work offline because connectivity in the pit is unreliable;
  • Reduction of inadvertent errors caused by transcribing handwritten data logs;
  • A way to reduce the lag between users logging data in the pit and capturing the data in GIM Suite; and
  • Speedier availability of blasthole sampling data for downstream modelling and decision making.

acQuire said: “acQuire’s GIM Suite 4.2 was designed to create a seamless interface for grade control so pit samplers could work faster and more accurately. The Round Mountain project provided a real-world application for beta testing and helped improve the overall user experience in the updated Arena mobile app.”

The collection of blasthole assay data is imperative for grade control modelling and creating ore cuts, according to Dickie. “It is the crux of ore handling procedures.”

He added: “We cannot always rely on network access in the field, so the online/offline data entry creates a more robust mechanism to collect information, which regularly determines the economic viability of an ore block.”

Solution: extend capability to include blasthole sampling

Enhancements to acQuire’s Arena mobile app were instrumental in creating a seamless digital experience in the GIM Suite 4.2 release, according to acQuire.

The following new and improved capabilities were put through their paces by the Kinross Gold project team to ensure suitability in a production environment:

  • Working offline in the pit with seamless synchronisation back to the server once network connectivity is established again. This includes the ability to define which specific pits, benches and blast patterns the pit worker would like to take offline with them;
  • A map of the blast pattern within the logging interface so the pit worker can see which holes have been logged and select their next hole to log as they walk along the pattern;
  • Responsive layouts to optimise the screen for a range of different device types and orientations. This provided the ability for views like a landscape tablet layout, with the blasthole map always displayed; and
  • Built-in barcode scanning for entering sample IDs, using the device’s camera to ensure accuracy and speed during data capture.

Results: user-friendly blasthole sampling in open-pit mining

Reviewing and providing feedback on the new Arena mobile app proved to be incredibly useful to the Kinross Gold team to ensure it is fit for the rigours of open-pit mining, acQuire said.

“The interface design has a very user-friendly functionality which allows users to select blastholes quickly and enter sample data efficiently,” Dickie said.

“This creates a smooth workflow in the field, and a more pleasant experience for users. The ability to take data on/offline is very smooth with this new application, which in my opinion strongly mitigates the risk of data loss as well as saves labour, when compared with previous offline data entry processes.”

Mundell added: “It’s exciting to see our product enhancements come to life in a real-life application. Kinross Gold was excellent to work with and provided a lot of thoughtful feedback that helped improve the user experience.

“We’re looking forward to continuing our collaboration with Kinross Gold in future releases of GIM Suite.”

acQuire optimises blasthole sampling with new app

Global software company acQuire has introduced mobile blasthole sampling in its latest release of GIM Suite 4.2.

The update extends acQuire’s mobile app to include mobile data capture for blasthole sampling in open-pit mines, it said.

acQuire explained: “The app, called acQuire Arena, gives miners a better way of working when capturing blasthole samples. Samplers and pit technicians can position themselves on the blast pattern, capture samples on simple, user-friendly forms and instantly validate their data at the point of capture.”

This speeds up the time it takes data logged in the pit to become available to downstream grade control processes like modelling and ore blocking, according to the company.

“In the current global climate, where many are affected by COVID-19 restrictions through either reduced or paused operations, it’s becoming crucial for miners to use new technology solutions to their advantage,” acQuire said.

Steve Mundell, Director of Product, said enhancements to the acQuire Arena app extended its data capture capabilities for grade control so pit samplers could work faster and more accurately.

“Miners who are still logging on paper, or using more manual methods of data collection, now have a reliable and modern mobile solution that works in the pit and seamlessly synchronises data back to the central database,” he said.

The acQuire Arena app is purpose-built for GIM (Geoscientific Information Management) Suite, with full integration across desktop, web and mobile, according to the company. “Its modern, user experience designed interface dynamically changes across different device sizes and it is optimised for Android and iOS operating systems, giving geologists more freedom to choose the device they prefer to use,” it said.

The GIM Suite 4.2 software release marks a significant step on acQuire’s technology roadmap, it said. “With greater functionality added across web and mobile, customers will continue to benefit from more and more features introduced in the future,” the company added.

acQuire says it provides geoscience data management software and services for the global mining industry with five offices worldwide and customer support centres operating in each major time zone.