Dassault Systèmes David Osborn
Photo by: Duane Daws
JOHANNESBURG (miningweekly.com) – Advanced aerospace high-technology is flying into South Africa’s changing mining space.
French software company Dassault Systèmes, which has built entire aircraft technology platforms that provide three-dimensional (3D) visualisation for every aspect all the way to assembly, is now keen to achieve the same sky-high cost efficiencies in mining.
In a presentation at this week’s mine planning conference – organised by the South African Institute of Mining and Metallurgy (SAIMM) in conjunction with the University of the Witwatersrand's School of Mining Engineering – Dassault Systèmes’ Neto Kapalata outlined how his company’s products had added impressive value to the diamond tailings dump at the Finsch diamond mine in the Northern Cape, where it made use of 3D technology and smart algorithms to provide a year-by-year account of recovery prospects. (Also watch attached Mining Weekly Online video.)
Significantly, Kapalata spoke shortly after SAIMM immediate past president Dr Gordon Smith who called on mining to “make a quantum change”.
“We’ve actually got to go through a personal philosophy change that avoids simply replicating what we have been doing before,” said Gordon, the executive technical head of Anglo American Platinum, who has had 34 years’ experience in mining commodities like base metals, chrome, diamonds and coal.
Dassault Systèmes Africa business unit MD David Osborn, who spoke to Mining Weekly Online in a video interview on the sidelines of the SAIMM conference, said his company had the means to string together the entire mining value chain through the establishment of common data centres and the use of niche applications to arrive at the best cost efficiencies.
“There is a big value proposition to be had,” Osborn said, with pricing based on the additional value created.
The company, which is in discussion with some of the biggest names in the mining business, is able to tap into the research and development (R&D) of 4 500 R&D personnel.
Mining companies are increasingly viewing themselves as industrial companies, not only in the way they operate but also in the manner in which they sell and deliver their metals and minerals and Anglo American CEO Mark Cutifani is among the mining leaders who have reiterated the need for mining processes, which have remained fundamentally unchanged for decades, to catch up commercially and logistically.
With a total of 13.5-million people dependent on mining-generated jobs in South Africa – some 25% of the population – South Africa has no option but to strive for maximum efficiency in mining, which is acknowledged at the highest levels as the flywheel of the local economy.
Delivering his Budget speech on Tuesday, new Minerals Minister Ngoako Ramatlhodi spoke on the need for innovation in mining and of R&D partnerships accelerating the government’s economic transformation programme.
The global Dassault Systèmes’ holistic input is able to connect people, data, ideas and solutions in a single business thrust that gives boardrooms and management unprecedented clarity in navigating the future.