Software, hardware and services firm Maptek has launched a new short-term planning tool to enable miners to build practical schedules around their mines.
The Evolution Epoch short-term planning tool links to the resource model, upstream mine design and downstream mine performance, allowing engineers to manage multiple mining activities, tasks and equipment and apply different types of dependences to define mining sequences.
“We developed Evolution Epoch with a clear vision to ensure short-term planners can build schedules that are practical, conform to mining constraints and remain aligned with long-term scheduling goals,” says Maptek mine planning product manager Eduardo Coloma.
Epoch was released alongside Evolution Strategy and Origin Version 6, and adds to the range’s mid- and long-term schedule offerings.
The Evolution Strategy product delivers a new multielement cutoff grade and capital expenditure optimisation functionality for maximising recovery and revenue to its suite of strategic optimisation tools, while Origin generates detailed scheduling scenarios from life-of-mine to short-term planning horizons.
“With the release of Evolution 6 and Epoch, Maptek provides mine planners with the most comprehensive, advanced set of mine scheduling and optimisation tools,” he says, pointing out that Epoch delivers flexible and automated sequencing, schedule visualisation and dynamic reporting.
“Mines need technical systems that are robust. The Evolution scheduling solution is dynamic and agile, minimising disruption to operations in the face of commodity, grade and resource fluctuations.”
He notes that engineers use Epoch to produce viable schedules by simultaneously considering excavation, haulage and dump activities, and can revise the haulage network in their designs and see the changes automatically reflected in the Evolution viewer.
Integration with the long-term schedule and Vulcan mine plans ensures that plans do not focus on short-term gains that can result in long-term losses.