MINING SOFTWARE
However , miners are starting to make breakthroughs in these areas , which bodes well for the ‘ digital transformation ’ projects being spoken of throughout industry providing the ‘ transformation ’ once thought possible .
Home truths
The disruption that has come with COVID-19 is arguably a catalyst for this re-think .
“ COVID – while being a terrible event from a humanitarian perspective – is a mega event that has caused ripples we call megatrends ,” Maloney explained . “ These megatrends will ultimately have a very positive effect on the mining and minerals sector . It has broken down so many barriers and silos ; if you had any resistance to change before , that is now gone with the effects of COVID .”
The inability to fly staff in and out of remote operations , and strict guidance around personnel coming on site has meant more operational oversight is carried out remotely .
“ From March last year , we had to work remotely with terabytes of data across the planet in real time , with less people on site ,” Maloney said . “ We essentially jumped ahead 36 months in the evolution of the digital adoption of the mining industry .”
Digital projects have become priorities for operations managers that cannot get on site and , in many cases , are accessing information from their homes .
The disintegrated digital process already discussed has become increasingly apparent through this lens , opening managers ’ eyes to the potential that could come from changes in process workflows .
This has led to miners taking a much more holistic view of their operations and where joined-up digital solutions can help them navigate through these uncertain times , relying less on more manual , on-site tasks .
Prepared for such a change , the industry has now turned its attention to the vendors supplying the software that ‘ connects the dots ’.
“ The industry has essentially said it needs to get some operational leverage between solutions from these vendors ,” Maloney said . “ They said to the general mining package ( GMP ) software community : ‘ we are investing massively in digital transformation and you guys are hampering our operations by not playing nicely with each other ; we ’ re not gaining the potential efficiencies we can .’”
They have urged the community to break down the interoperability barriers and help them interact more freely between systems and platforms .
This pressure has seen the GMP community acknowledge a few home truths .
Adam Brew , MICROMINE Australia Manager , told IM : “ While MICROMINE does offer a solution for each stage of the mining lifecycle , we certainly acknowledge that there are some solutions that customers are reliant on , which are embedded into the culture of the operation which won ’ t be displaced .
“ In these circumstances , we strive to bridge any gaps in functionality through integration via application programming interfaces ( APIs ) or automated data transfer schedules . We have ensured our solutions are compatible with all major GMPs and over 30 specialist solutions and file types .”
Maptek CEO , Eduardo Coloma , also reflected on how his company and the wider mining software sector was changing :
“ As well as our in-house R & D , one of Maptek ’ s key strategic objectives is to identify appropriate partners who develop complementary technology that enhances the value proposition for our customers ,” he told IM . “ This year marks our 40 th year in business . We ’ re mature enough to acknowledge we don ’ t need to build everything from scratch .”
Maptek and MICROMINE are not the only companies fronting up to this reality .
Lourens Du Plessis , Vice President of Sales and Marketing at Modular Mining , added : “ Despite the
MICROMINE ’ s Adam Brew says the latestgeneration machine-learning algorithm within Pitram Vision software comes with an accuracy of greater than 99 %
successes achieved and results produced by our core technologies , we ’ ve come to understand that as the needs of the industry evolve , and integration becomes increasingly important , we won ’ t be able to solve every problem on our own .
“ With this in mind , we revised our corporate focus in early 2019 and adopted a new vision : sustainable mining powered by open technology solutions ,” he said . “ In support of this initiative , we ’ ve begun taking steps to foster increased integration , interoperability and communication with relevant third-party systems .” acQuire Technology Solutions Director of Product , Steve Mundell , said a key part of the company ’ s product strategy for its flagship geological data management software , GIM Suite , is having connectivity with third-party systems for people to
Modular Mining ’ s Lourens Du Plessis says the company has begun taking steps to foster increased integration , interoperability and communication with relevant third-party systems
24 International Mining | FEBRUARY 2021