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Software developer halts implementation of mine design product on local mines

9th November 2015

By: Samantha Herbst

Creamer Media Deputy Editor

  

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LONDON (miningweekly.com) – The implementation in South African mines of infrastructure software manufacturer Bentley Systems’ MineCycle Designer has been put on the back burner for now, owing to challenges currently facing the local mining sector, confirmed Bentley mining solutions executive Dave Body in an exclusive interview with Mining Weekly Online at the 2015 Year in Infrastructure Conference, which took place in London last week.

Launched last year, MineCycle Designer was one of three new mining products, or software foundations, that Bentley Systems launched through a syndicate-driven development programme (SDDP) with several South African mining majors – including Anglo American Platinum, AngloGold Ashanti, Royal Bafokeng Platinum and Lonmin Platinum – to target the mining industry.

Together with MineCycle Survey and MineCycle Material Handling, MineCycle Designer was launched to help mining industry participants tackle some of their most pressing challenges, including the need for a continuous, rather than an intermittent, mine-planning cycle.

“To release MineCyle Designer [last year], we ran through acceptance testing with the various syndicated developers. However, with depressed commodity prices, compounded by local challenges – especially in the platinum ring – capital is tight at the moment and the actual implementation of MineCycle Designer has been put on the back burner until things in South Africa improve, after which we’ll reassess,” said Body.

He confirmed, however, that Bentley Systems was ready to continue the implementation of MineCycle Designer in South Africa’s mines once the market in South Africa improves.

Bentley Systems solutions management senior director John Sanins further highlighted the significant downturn in the global mining industry, which further contributed to the slow uptake of MineCycle Designer.

“All big mining operators have been squeezing their funding, reducing their capital expenditure and trying to get more from their existing assets – and you can only do so much,” said Sanins.

Bentley Systems global infrastructure owners senior VP Ted Lamboo also noted that Bentley’s timing in terms of when MineCycle Designer was launched was unfortunate, though he confirmed his belief that the market would pick up again.

“Unfortunately, hindsight is 20/20 and we came out with these products as mining plunged. In these types of economic times, people are not researching and investing, they are trying to watch the bottom line while commodity prices are coming down,” Lamboo told Mining Weekly Online.

Meanwhile, Body highlighted the “interesting uptake” of MineCycle Material Handling in the engineering, procurement and construction management world.

“It fits in with Bentley’s notion of ‘conceptioneering’, which is trying to determine which option [in bulk materials handling] is going to deliver the best return on investment and to ensure that it meets the design criteria,” he said, adding that engineering firm Hatch is also looking to use MineCycle Material Handling on a number of upcoming projects in South Africa.

Bentley also confirmed the positive uptake of MineCycle Survey by three Southern African mine owner-operators, including South African zinc miner Black Mountain Mining, chrome producer ASA Metals and Botswana-based diamond miner Boteti Mining.

These miners have embraced the new data processing and visualisation technologies of Bentley’s software to accelerate mine survey cycles to enable faster, higher-quality decisions that improve mine performance. This product is aimed at increasing production efficiency by delivering more timely information for planning and operational purposes.

ABOUT BENTLEY'S MINECYCLE PRODUCTS

MineCycle Designer, MineCycle Material Handling and MineCycle Survey were the first Bentley Systems products to be created through syndicated development, whereby industry participants were directly involved in developing the software’s definition and design.

At last year’s product launch, Lonmin technical services head Jurgens Visser explained that leading South African mining houses had been trying to collaborate for more than a decade to drive improvements in the industry’s mine planning systems.

This was finally achieved in 2012, when Bentley and mining technology solutions provider Cyest Technology approached several mining majors, including Anglo American Platinum, AngloGold Ashanti, Royal Bafokeng Platinum and Lonmin, as well as engineering firms Hatch, GHD Group and PDC Group, to help develop the next generation of general mine-planning solutions.

“SDDP members, [who met once a month], determined the functional requirements of the new industry product and, therefore, were empowered as part of this new paradigm,” said Visser, describing the collaboration as an “industry first”.

The development programme took place over 100 weeks, with 22 iterations, ensuring that SDDP members saw progress on a monthly basis and that the final product met exact functional user requirements.

Edited by Creamer Media Reporter

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