Improved accuracy in mine planning

Targeted at coal, metals and underground mining operations in particular, the solution provides tools to create more detailed and accurate mining plans in less time.
John Hives, mining specialist at Runge, said, “Mining operations grapple daily with a variety of challenges to meet their production targets. While long-term and medium-term schedules provide the guidance needed for mining operators, there is often a lack of detail about short-term schedules.”
Hives said every shift brings new short-term challenges such as equipment failure, labour changes, weather, and many other variables, and the impact of these changes needs to be carefully considered so that medium and long term goals are not compromised.
“Xact 1.4 has an improved tool set including graphical scheduling capability, multiple stockpiling options and charting ability. These allow mining engineers to react quickly and decisively against changes, which is key to the success of today’s mine operations. We’ve also made it simple and easy to use and the system’s intuitiveness allows minimal set-up and training time.”
Xact is designed to address the dynamic nature of short-term scheduling, allowing operational staff to monitor and report on work progress of mining operations. The solution is designed to be used for all types of mines and mineral deposits, providing users a short-term scheduling tool kit that provides a central repository for short-term scheduling data and logic. This allows mining engineers to construct, analyse and update short-term mining schedules on a regular basis using databases, Gantt charts, plots and reports. The powerful presentation and reporting tools mean that inventory and quality reports are easily created, updated, and run using any time scale.
Ian Neilsen, senior mining engineer of Ensham Resources, said, “Today more than ever enhanced cost management is crucial to the profitability of mining operations. We have been using Runge’s Xact solution for two years to improve our inventory control.
“Asset utilisation management issues, such as analysis of equipment availability, are imperative to mining operations as they minimise disruption to the business. The ability to have daily quality reports with the new system provides enhanced visibility to identify and resolve quality variances.”
Neilsen said the Xact model allows for a quick and accurate evaluation of alternate detailed mine plans in reaction to major strategy and advance changes of the mine directly and this translates into cost savings.
For more information visit:  www.runge.com.au