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The company Dassault Systèmes recently offered a precious piece of software to Penn State’s College of Earth and Mineral Sciences. The program Minex from the line GEOVIA will now provide access to real-world technology to mining engineering researchers and students.
“Penn State and Dassault Systèmes share the vision of modeling the Earth with solutions not only for mining and related design practices, but also oil and gas, water and other natural resource industries”, a press release reveals.
Dassault Systèmes’ GEOVIA brand is the largest global supplier of mining software solutions. Overall, the company is ranked number 31 in Forbes’ 2013 list of the Most Innovative Companies in the World, as well as number three in the Software and Programming category.
Jamal Rostami, associate professor of energy and mineral engineering and current program officer for mining engineering, says that the firm has “one of the most comprehensive set of software packages for geological modeling that can be used in mine exploration, development and exploitation phases”.
But let’s take a closer look at eight of their software programs, specifically created for the mining industry:
1. Minex
The only integrated, end-to-end geology and mine planning solution for coal and other stratified deposits.
Minex is the recognised world leader of integrated geology and mine planning solutions for coal and other stratified deposits. Minex ensures resources are evaluated accurately and mined efficiently from exploration to rehabilitation. As a single integrated solution, data and skills can be readily moved between teams at significant time and cost savings.
It helps the users save time, making mine design easier, make better decisions, improve communication thanks to better interpretation of data with powerful visualisation tools and graphical displays and achieve greater accuracy, providing a tight integration with the stratigraphic model.
2. Surpac
Integrated geology, resource modelling, mine planning and production.
The world’s most popular geology and mine planning software, supporting open pit and underground operations and exploration projects in more than 120 countries. The software delivers efficiency and accuracy through ease-of-use, powerful 3D graphics and workflow automation that can be aligned to company-specific processes and data flows.
Surpac addresses all the requirements of geologists, surveyors, and mining engineers in the resource sector and is flexible enough to be suitable for every commodity, orebody and mining method. Its multilingual capabilities allow global companies to support a common solution across their operations.
Benefits:
- Comprehensive tools include: drillhole data management, geological modelling, block modelling, geostatistics, mine design, mine planning, resource estimation, and more.
- Increased efficiencies within teams result from better sharing of data, skills and project knowledge.
- All tasks in Surpac can be automated and aligned to company-specific processes and data flows.
- Software ease-of-use ensures staff develop an understanding of the system and of project data quickly.
- Surpac is modular and easily customised.
- Surpac reduces data duplication by connecting to relational databases and interfacing with common file formats from GIS, CAD and other systems.
- Integrated production scheduling with GEOVIA MineSched.
- Multilingual support: English, Chinese, Russian, Spanish and French.
3. GEMS
Integrated geology, resource modelling, mine planning and production.
The leader in collaborative geology and mine planning solutions. GEMS provides the right capabilities for open pit and underground mining professionals in exploration, modelling, mine design, long-term planning and production scheduling.
With GEMS’ unique central database, geologists and engineers gain immediate access to organised, up-to-date geological and mine planning data, while the breakthrough block model conversion engine enables users to collaborate together using different software packages, providing direct conversion betwee n different block model formats. GEMS’ data security and auditing provides the capabilities to improve compliance with industry regulations like JORC, SAMREC and NI 43-101.
Benefits:
- Central database manages data, enabling data security and auditability, while eliminating data redundancy and increasing data integrity and accuracy.
- Streamlined data flows, central data access and increased compatibility improve collaboration, providing information when needed to speed decision-making.
- System ease-of-use — robust dialog boxes guide users through workflows.
- Industry-standard Microsoft technologies integrate with existing IT infrastructure and ensure system scalability.
- PlotMaker feature allows users to annotate plots with text blocks, bitmaps, Excel spreadsheets, Word documents and other objects.
- Simplify the Tunnel Design process by rolling up multiple steps into one.
4. Whittle
Strategic mine planning – Optimise mine profits
When exploration and mining companies need to evaluate the financial viability and the optimal mine strategy for a deposit, they turn to the industry leading strategic mine planning solution — GEOVIA Whittleâ„¢. Companies depend on Whittle to help them determine their investment strategy and to deliver robust mine plans that maximise profitability by taking into account real mining constraints.
Whittle delivers trusted results and is used in scoping, feasibility, life-of-mine scheduling, and in the ongoing re-evaluation of mine plans throughout the production phase. Because pit optimisation alone is not enough to unlock the full economic potential of your operation, Whittle provides mine optimisation, which enables significant increases in project value over and above pit optimisation.
Benefits:
Exploration
- Understand the potential value of the deposit.
- Target areas for future drilling.
Scoping
- Establish the economic viability of the deposit and options for capital investment and development strategies.
- Examine sensitivities and assign resources accordingly for future studies.
Pre-feasibility, Feasibility
- Identify preferred development strategy, capital investment, expected NPV and optimal extraction sequence.
- Calculate sensitivities to develop risk reduction strategy.
- Ascertain final reserve statement for the deposit.
Bankable Feasibility Study
- Analyse expected return on investment.
- Analyse sensitivities and investment risk.
- Consider multiple scenarios for reducing risk.
Production
- Determine strategic direction for the mine; cut-off grade and optimised cut-off grade; mining areas and extraction sequence per period; and development strategies for new mines and push backs.
- Re-evaluate mine plans in response to changing conditions.
- Calculation of annual reserve statement.
5. MineSched
Great results with proven technology.
MineSched is employed by surface and underground mining operations of all types and sizes to produce long-term and short-term schedules, that will meet all of a mine’s targets. MineSched can schedule from pre-created block, grid, and polygon models that originate from many different mine planning systems, including GEOVIA Surpacâ„¢ and GEOVIA Minexâ„¢.
The software is known for its broad set of capabilities, proven scheduling algorithms, and ability to output results in a wide variety of formats, including 2D and 3D graphics, worksheet-based reports, Gantt charts, and even in an interactive 3D viewer. Most importantly, MineSched creates schedules that improve productivity and profits beyond what could be achieved by manual scheduling.
6. PCBC
Bring power and flexibility to your block cave operation.
PCBC is used by virtually every mining company involved in block caving who depend on it to improve profits through better mine plans, schedules and production management. PCBC clients realise substantial increases in deposit value through more accurate resource estimations and reports, while benefiting from better dilution management and geotechnical stability. PCBC has a proven track record for keeping production schedules current under the dynamically changing conditions at operating mines. With decisions based on a single source of data housed in a central database, PCBC users spend less time updating mine plans, evaluating scheduling options and running profitability scenarios.
It helps to reduce the risk for large capital projects by evaluation of multiple scenarios, provides better grade modelling and forecasting by using multiple material mixing options, as well as complete integration from pre-feasibility modelling right through to daily production which is unmatched in the block cave industry. It also provides a powerful production scheduling which can rapidly be updated and modified for real production statistics, besides management reports for effective monitoring of dynamic situations.
7. InSite
Take control of a mine and plant production.
InSite provides clean, auditable production information from both the mine and the plant. This information is used to provide confidence in the quality and quantity of mined stocks. All activities are traceable and allow mining staff to accurately understand what has occurred in the mine over any time period. All planned activities can be stored and compared against the actual production data, allowing for prompt reconciliation. Variances can be analysed and reconciliation allows for discrepancies to be managed. Continuous process improvement is possible with visibility into where variances of all size (positive and negative) occur.
Benefits:
- Accurate comparison of planned and actual production data.
- Monitor progress of any activity, including mining, transportation and processing.
- Visual representation of your operation to monitor all activities and rapidly respond to changes.
- Manage production down to the shift level and assign resources.
- Confidence in the mass and grade of your stockpiles.
- Monitor equipment performance to control costs and eliminate bottlenecks.
- Visibility of all operational key performance indicators and control of outliers across the operation.
8. Hub
A high impact, low overhead data management solution.
Hub provides secure remote collaboration that organises, centralises and enables the reliable sharing of exploration, planning, and production data reliably over low-bandwidth connections. Hub reduces travel to site and helps address staff shortages by allowing mining professionals to work together no matter where they are in the world.
Easy to learn and quick to install, Hub delivers immediate benefits, including data security, version control, and the ability to synchronise large files rapidly. Requiring minimal IT support despite sophisticated technology, Hub ensures scalability for the enterprise and a single version of the truth for effective collaboration between users.
Benefits:
- Data centralisation results in more effective information sharing and collaboration between mining professionals, regardless of where they are located in the world.
- Data management optimised specifically for exploration, planning, and production data facilitates transfers of large datasets such as resource models, even over intermittent, low bandwidth communication infrastructures.
- Effective data centralisation and organisation ensures a single version of the truth and data integrity through versioning, security and rights management.
- Data management is file format independent, giving users control over their critical project information no matter what application was used to generate it.
- System setup and management requires minimal IT knowledge and involvement, significantly reducing training and support requirements for a rapid return on investment.