We are honored and pleased to announce that Dassault Systèmes’ 3DEXPERIENCE Mine has won the 2016 Mining Magazine Awards in the Software category. Mining Magazine is a global publication offering in-depth, technical insight into all operational aspects of mining.
Held annually, the Mining Magazine Awards celebrate innovation and commitment to advancing the face of mining, not just technologically but also sustainably and in an environmentally respectful manner.
There are 11 award categories: Exploration, Software, Load & Haul, Drill & Blast, Safety, Environmental Excellence, Mineral Processing, Service & Support, Bulk Handling, Technology and Editor’s Award.
While we are the only software company included in the 2016 awards, we’re also proud to announce that our customer, Dundee Precious Metals Chelopech Mine in Bulgaria, has also won the Technology award for their artificial roof design.
Congratulations to the Chelopech Mine, who are a GEOVIA InSite, PCBC and GEMS customer.
We’d also like to congratulate and acknowledge all the other category winners – view the entire list here.
So, what is the 3DEXPERIENCE Mine?
Our 3DEXPERIENCE Mine is a virtual mine solution that takes our mining customers on a transformative innovation journey, enabling them to understand, control and increase the value of their businesses. With data from across all aspects of the operations, it is also a collaborative engine, with end-to-end traceability and decision-support.
The 3DEXPERIENCE Mine provides a single version of the truth by centralizing, sharing and managing all data such as: resources, reserves, mine designs, plans, production schedules, analytics, historical data, etc. Through this, it provides an immediate, global understanding of how well processes are functioning right now, this week and this month with the ability to rapidly identify problems and introduce improvements. It also drives advanced simulation, which will allow more complex scenarios to be researched.
The mining enterprise from the operational level to the c-suite is connected by 3DEXPERIENCE Mine in a virtual universe for modelling and design, simulation, execution and monitoring and collaboration. Providing the applications that drive key mining company functions, big data on premise and in the cloud, it drives the day-to-day running of mining businesses and their operations globally.
What are some applications of the 3DEXPERIENCE Mine?
It enables ideas to be explored, simulated, proven and improved upon in the virtual world which would be impractical or cost-prohibitive to try out in the real one. Imagine the wildest and most provocative ideas you may have for your mining business, or a pillar in engineering, logistics, or mine construction that you would love to explore, but would be afraid of the cost of failure. 3DEXPERIENCE Mine removes these barriers. Any idea, big or small, can be investigated.
On a large scale, for example, one can walk through a virtual version of a mine site before construction, while at the same time review the economic impacts of changes to the configuration of equipment, the plant, or locations of stockpiles or haul roads. Out-of-left-field ideas, such as the utilization of blimps to in lieu of the building of a railway network to connect the mine to a port, could also be explored.
On a smaller scale, engineers may use the virtual world to test the assembly of a virtual version of a modular plant before it is fabricated and shipped to site. As a virtual version of a mining business and its operations, the Virtual Mine will enable collaboration in new ways, bringing together the best and brightest minds from inside and outside of the company.
Mining companies can connect to their vendors in 3DEXPERIENCE Mine to create a virtual team of experts. A mining company may use the system to gather data on equipment performance with the objective of improving the efficiency of its global fleet by, say, 10%. To meet this goal, real-time data could be incorporated from production schedules to account for maintenance routines, or rescheduling done on the fly with work orders issued to equipment operators to keep production on track within shift.
When equipment breaks down, data can be shared with the vendor to gain their assistance in diagnosing and resolving the problem. Questions that could be answered might be:
- How can performance be improved by identifying equipment uptime, maintenance time and other issues causing downtime?
- Will changes in capacity, equipment utilization and routing are needed to most effectively increase productivity and lower costs?
- What is the best strategy for part sourcing?
Together with mine plans, schedules, optimal routing, stockpile utilization and processing, all options can be simulated with the virtual mine to come up with the best options. However, a more interesting possibility is utilizing mining data to find modular equipment designs that are optimized for specific types of mines and mine deposits, making them more efficient.
In another scenario, imagine a sudden rise in commodity demand. Mining companies will want to maximize the opportunity while not escalating costs and decreasing productivity. Corporate strategic planners, operations decision-makers, and planning engineers can work together, leveraging geological models, market data, logistics data, historical data and other information to simulate different ramp-up options to find the lowest-cost, most economically sustainable options for ramping up production and then scaling down when necessary.
Since 3DEXPERIENCE Mine spans the mine site to customer delivery, it enables mining companies to deploy demand-based scheduling. This keeps them tightly attuned to customer demand and operational performance, providing key performance indicators to planners that enable them to make smart adjustments to plans to maintain peak efficiency.
- To rapidly scale up/down production, what changes would be required at specific mines (infrastructure, plant capacity/location, personnel, etc.)?
- What is the most economical way to implement changes?
- When re-opening or closing mines, is it cost-effective to reallocate equipment to/from operations?
What are the benefits of the 3DEXPERIENCE Mine?
The world of virtual experience is rapidly going to change the way that mining innovates and runs its businesses. It will see the dawn of an exciting new era as the new frontier upon which new possibilities will be imagined and discovered.
For more information, visit Dassault Systèmes Natural Resources.
A version of this post also appeared in Mining Magazine. Read the full story here.
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