MINING SOFTWARE company open to collaboration across the mining technology space .
It has been involved in South Australia ’ s Mining Innovation Consortium , for instance , partnering with the University of Adelaide on a research program to determine the effect of uncertainty in geological models on the net present value resulting from a long-term mine schedule .
It has also collaborated with Minviro , with the two companies combining their technologies to provide a solution to minimise an operation ’ s environmental impact while simultaneously optimising the material movement schedule .
And , in 2021 , it become the first mining design software company to sponsor the Coalition for Eco Efficient Comminution . This is where the company ’ s work in reducing the burden on mine engineers for blast design is of particular interest .
Eduardo Coloma , CEO of Maptek , explained : “ An ever-growing requirement to engineer for control and profit in practice means benchmarking blast design scenarios to better evaluate the interrelated factors that influence performance .”
Automating this process can improve the outcomes and allow engineers to concentrate on other tasks , hence the reason why Maptek has pursued a new design approach that only requires a polygon , surfaces and array of blast design variables from the user .
“ The variables are randomly manipulated to converge on the best possible solutions from competing blast objectives such as cost , fragmentation and vibration ,” Coloma explained . “ Generating optimum blast outcomes , and generating them earlier in the value chain , allows that evaluation to occur as part of short- and medium-term planning , adding value to the entire mine operations workflow .”
Maptek BlastMCF does exactly this , harnessing automation , data analytics and optimisation for the best blast performance , according to Coloma , providing an opportunity for surface mines to achieve more with every blast .
The company ’ s BlastLogic solution is then able to record these outcomes , acting as a central data repository that is updated in near real time and used by mines to drive operational and engineering improvements based on learnings from past performance .
In one example , Maptek worked closely with mining consultant MEC Mining , artificial intelligence ( AI ) specialist Insight and engineers at the BHP Mitsubishi Alliance-owned Caval Ridge operation in Queensland , Australia , to develop a suite of Power BI dashboards linked to BlastLogic that allow engineers to source the correct data to learn from past blasts and better inform their decision making for planning , designs and scheduling .
“ The dashboards compare design against actuals for a wide range of blast metrics , with pie charts and spatial plots of holes coloured by dipping , backfilling , charging and wet hole information ,” Coloma explained . “ Leveraging BlastLogic ’ s SQL data warehouse provides access to years of information at the click of a button , which is made available on all devices . Rapid deployment to other sites or operations is another advantage .”
Maptek – as can be seen – has hands in many pies in the mining software sector , with Coloma believing the most transformation currently taking place is in the industry ’ s use of machine learning and AI .
“ Reducing the time from data collection to value creation is a major driver for success , particularly when industry is struggling to find experienced personnel ,” he said . “ Machine learning embeds years of knowledge and delivers results faster in a repeatable process for domain modelling .”
He offered up an example here involving a trial of DomainMCF , the company ’ s domain modelling solution , at IGO ’ s Nova mine in Western Australia .
Back in 2022 , geologists at the operation trialled DomainMCF in parallel with the standard workflow as part of a resource update at the project , noting that the improved resource modelling process resulted in better quality drill hole logging .
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