Talpac Archives - International Mining

RPMGlobal has launched its first Software as a Service (SaaS) product, providing mining companies, it says, with the capability to undertake haulage calculations in a cloud environment.

With more and more operations choosing to move business-critical operations into the cloud, RPM has leveraged the growing shift from the desktop by collaborating with industry partners to launch a service-based approach to haulage calculations, known as Haulage as a Service (HaaS).

This cloud enabled, service-oriented approach to haulage analysis means users are no longer confined to one application on the desktop. Under the new SaaS model, customers are able to write their own applications to interact with HaaS. Users can then configure haul traces, haul routes, settings and trucks to run travel time calculations automatically in the cloud.

HaaS leverages the travel time calculation engine contained within RPM’s TALPAC product which has been the de-facto standard for simulation within the mining industry for more than 40 years, according to RPM. This calculation engine enables users or customer applications to undertake travel time calculations on demand.

RPMGlobal Chief Executive Officer, Richard Mathews, said: “HaaS is tailored to the current requirements of our customers to cloud-enable their operations and enable their businesses to be conducted remotely no matter where they or their people are physically located.

“Providing our customers with flexible and scalable ways to use RPM’s software is a key part of our customer service promise, and cloud-hosted options enhance our ability to support our customers through an internet-enabled cloud access to the hosted application.

“Making our innovative software available through a variety of delivery methods will remain critical moving forward and with a number of our customers undergoing the transition to cloud environments, we are proud to be at the forefront of this migration.”

The reporting and calibration benefits within the cloud HaaS offering are already resulting in miners requesting access to HaaS, RPM says. Miners are using HaaS as a way of measuring haulage performance and identifying areas of haulage improvement, including being able to automatically compare the actual values out of their fleet management systems (FMS) with calculated values, straight after the haulage route is complete on a consistent basis.

With HaaS, miners have increased operational agility to undertake haulage calculations from any location, according to the company. Because there is no desktop application, the calculations can be delivered via the web or mobile apps instantly.

Mathews said RPMGlobal’s cloud-enabled SaaS solutions help to solve several key industry challenges, including the problem of siloed data.

“With HaaS, data is no longer trapped within individual desktop applications or siloed with individual users,” he said. “This cloud-enabled approach enables operations to get the best overall haulage performance right across their operations irrespective of where the users or applications calling the cloud service are physically located.

“Mining is a dynamic and fluid environment, often making it difficult to benchmark the performance of trucks. Miners have had to use key performance indicators such as Effective Flat Haul in an attempt to normalise data. HaaS addresses this challenge by allowing miners to compare every haul against a benchmark calculated value.”

Mathews concluded: “If there can be one positive thing to come out of the global challenges of COVID-19 it is an understanding that companies need to be able to operate their businesses remotely no matter where their people are physically located, and being able to utilise SaaS applications means they can do exactly that.”

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.