Services
Consulting Services
Examples of some of our personalised high quality mine planning services are provided below.
Life-of-Asset and Feasibility Studies
Optimal Mining Solutions' consultants are experienced in all aspects of life-of-asset and feasibility studies including solids generation, interrogation of geological models, workflow calculations, scheduling and haulage modelling. Our consultants have completed life-of-asset and feasibility studies for some of the world's largest mining companies using Deswik, Spry and XPAC.
Haulage Modelling and Costing
Optimal Mining Solutions provides expert truck and shovel haulage analysis work in Spry and Deswik. Our consultants have completed haulage models for some of the world's biggest mining companies and contractors. Our consultants can provide expert analysis of haulage options, fleet configurations and full costing of truck and shovel operations.
Dragline Planning
Optimal Mining Solutions provides short, mid and long term dragline plans to clients through the use of two main software packages:
- 3D-Dig Plus - used for more difficult operations including inside or outside corners, clearing ramps and tight spoiling areas, and
- Minescape Dragline Module - used for dragline cross sectional analysis work.
Through the use of these packages our team can supply all dragline planning requirements, from initial dragline horizon calculations through to pullback studies and full staging of options.
Midterm Planning
Combining our resources and planning skills from draglines, truck and shovel and other mining practices, we are able to generate detailed midterm plans that can be fully staged in Spry, Deswik or 3D-Dig.
The midterm plans show the planned progression of all equipment items, highlighting interaction issues that may not have been evident previously. The stage plans are excellent communication tools for both operations and management.
Our team can analyse various midterm design options and then calculate the reserves across a range of software packages.
Simulations
Using Wolverine’s GPSSH and Proof software packages, our team can create a customized simulation for any mining application.
So far, our simulations have been used to:
- Simulate all coal truck movements over the life of a mine to provide data on stockpile sizes, stockpile qualities, product rates achievable and product coal specifications,
- Simulate the benefits of installing additional train load out and stockpiling capacity,
- Analyse the number and size of stockpiles needed to adequately handle by-product coal of varying qualities,
- Analyse the effect of changing the overburden schedule on product coal specifications across the life of a mine,
- Analyse the effect on stockpile sizes by varying coal quality drilling spacing, and
- Determine the best location (mine site, train loadout or port) for additional infrastructure for a coal supply chain system. This simulation determined the NPV of all possible scenarios and reported the highest NPV option.
Using a simulation programming language like GPSSH allows random events such as weather, mechanical breakdowns, etc. to be analysed across thousands of scenarios with the minimum, maximum and average performance reported across all of the scenarios. The frequency and duration of the random events changes for each scenario.
The application of simulations in mining operations are endless. Our custom-built simulations provide detailed information on any proposed new or modified system including haulage fleets, infrastructure (such as wash plants, ROMs, stockpiles, etc.), rosters and shifts.
Fleet Selection
We have undertaken several fleet selection and equipment matching studies for some of the biggest mining companies and deposits throughout Australia and the world. Our previous fleet selection studies have developed owner-operator fleet options as well as full capital and operating cost models.
Optimal Mining Solutions has an extensive database of equipment parameters, including non-truck & shovel equipment for clients that wish to "think outside the square" and analyse all possible options.
Our equipment database combines seamlessly with our customised fleet analysis program to deliver the best possible results.