Micromine has become the newest mining software and machinery provider to offer technology solutions integrated with the International Rock Excavation Data Exchange Standard (IREDES).

The global mining software provider, headquartered in Western Australia, is among nine companies globally to integrate its products with IREDES, which was developed by industry, for industry, to streamline data exchange between machinery and office IT systems, Micromine says.

Micromine has integrated its latest fleet management and mine control solution, Pitram, and its latest 3D mine design and exploration solution, Micromine, with IREDES.

MICROMINE Chief Technology Officer Ivan Zelina said Micromine prioritised the IREDES integration to provide customers with easier, more streamlined mine digitalisation processes.

“By utilising IREDES we have removed the e-language barriers that often exist between machinery products and office-based software systems,” Zelina said.

“IREDES provides a standardised information exchange interface, which allows different machinery databases, simulation tools and other enterprise level software to exchange data and information.

“This avoids the need to develop and install individual and expensive software workarounds and development projects, and also streamlines and enhances data sharing and reporting.”

Zelina said this conversion is a straightforward process. In the company’s Micromine product, for example, a ring design can be converted to an IREDES file format “so that it can be accessed using other software and systems”.

Zelina concluded: “In an industry where digitalisation is growing exponentially, the integration of IREDES into Micromine’s software solutions reduces the time and cost of interface development during installation and maintenance of systems and products.

“Instead, customers can concentrate their resources on the intelligent use of information to enhance their business processes and outcomes.”

IREDES uses the eXtensible Markup Language (XML), which is a widely used format by commercial standard software and database systems. It builds on this language though XML schemas – the building blocks of the XML file – which describe hierarchy and data exchange parameters. The information is then transferred using XML data sets, which can be readily accessed by users and transferred between programmes.