Background
Mine scheduling software predominantly services a single mine or a small complex containing a few mines which service a single processing plant. The assumptions within that environment are:
- Data sizes reasonable for a small cluster of mines
- Single point of data entry and data management for the scheduling project
- Data provided by a small handful of site-based engineers at regular intervals to meet typical reporting timetables
While these assumptions are problems where they aren’t met, they also cause problems for smaller mines:
- There is typically no change management or change logging, so the system is prone to data entry errors and personnel making adjustments to key numbers and then forgetting which ones they changed
- When new data arrives, the single-all-in-one project-file structure means a choice has to be made as to which of the many what-if cases that were run over the previous months should be used as the basis to go forward and take the new data
MineOpTek Advisor aims to be the medium and long term scheduling product of choice for any size problem, and does so by addressing the major and consistent failings of the existing packages.
Key Features
- Support for large data sets. Advisor is able to handle gigabytes of data with the same fast performance as small data sets.
- Change Logging. Each asset has full change logging and keeps a history of every change made to the asset since it was first created. Changes are time-stamped and record the details of the user that made the change as well as a detailed description of the change.
- Rapid assimilation of new data. When new data arrives from site it simply becomes added to list of available assets and can be slotted in to many existing what-ifs and schedules with a few clicks.
- Distributed data management. Sites and personnel can be responsible for their own data, which is typically a subset of the larger schedule. With MineOpTek Advisor installed at each site or plant hub, sites can build their own site-specific set of assets and schedules and then email these individually to a central planner or even to other sites for slotting into bigger-picture multi-complex schedules or business-wide schedules without the need to further or repeated data entry. With change logging and version management this greatly reduces the workload of a central planner.
- Work ‘offline’. Systems of this nature usually involve a head-office database and server which stakeholders log in to, which becomes problematic with remote mines and unreliable and/or slow network infrastructure. MineOpTek Advisor requires no network connection and uses a simple import/export mechanism to transfer assets around using whatever means is appropriate and useful for the engineer, e.g. email, USB, network, optical disk.
- MIP enhancements. MineOpTek Advisor contains optimisations to the standard MIP model used in these problem types to more efficiently support larger data sizes. Advisor also supports stopping a solve mid-run, examining the current best schedule, making adjustments, and then continuing the solve from the point it left off.