Integration of GEOVIA Surpac with VIST automated despatch system

A Russia Mining Company Story | What are the enterprises of mining? Gold, iron ore, coal, diamonds? No! Every business makes money. This is the goal of every enterprise.

This Blog Post is reproduced courtesy of the: 3DS Russia blog (translated from Russian) 

If the mined ton of gold or iron ore does not bring you income, or worse, your costs will be higher than the profit from the sale of products, what is the value of this ore for the enterprise? Each ton of ore should bring the maximum income or bear the minimum costs in conditions of safe production and adherence to mining technology.

The distribution of the movement of the rock mass in time should lead the enterprise to meet this goal. In order to achieve it, it is necessary to create a good plan that will simulate the production process with the maximum achievement of volumetric and quality indicators. Each plan must be provided with correct, accurate and up-to-date data.

Managing multiple sources of data: a challenge for mining companies

What data does mine planning provide? These are surveying and geological information, design data and production and technical information (for example, from ERP systems):

All these processes carry a huge amount of graphic, digital and textual information, such as a cloud of laser scanning points, a mine surveying database, operational surveying of the bottom, a geological block model, blast hole drilling data, changes in contacts in the blasted rock mass, production indicators and their changes, changes in the dynamics of equipment operation, etc.

The data stream is constant and endless. And most of the information is interdependent. We must not forget that all this data is the primary source, the information from which the creation of the plan begins. Therefore, to create an optimal plan, it is necessary to be able to obtain the most accurate data. The correctness of the initial information exponentially affects the final goal.

If one of the sources contains data with underestimated accuracy or incorrect information, then the entire chain of processes will be erroneous and distancing from the goal. Therefore, it is necessary to have the resources that allow you to properly prepare and work with data.

The information obtained from various sources – electronic systems, GGIS systems (GEOVIA Surpac), ERP systems, automated mine planning systems (GEOVIA MineSched), mining management systems (for example, VIST Group) – has a different data format. This raises the question of systems integration.

Often, all solutions in the mining planning and design chain can be more or less integrated with each other. But the intensity of the data flow, the number of their types, and variability are such that a person is not able to convert from one system to another in a relatively quick time.

Whether it is a geologist or a planning engineer, the technician must spend time not importing and exporting files from one system to another, he must create value and move the enterprise towards the goal.

Leveraging your data with technology

If we talk about short-term planning, then it is important that this data is not only accurate, but also up-to-date. It is necessary to be able to receive information at any time in order to react to changes and quickly edit the production script. Accordingly, we need such systems and equipment that will improve the efficiency of processes for receiving and processing information.

Lidar scanners allow you to quickly receive data with high accuracy, rock mass sampling technologies provide a picture of the position of the ore body in the massif, positioning systems track the position and condition of equipment in real time, and the design and planning systems GEOVIA Surpac and GEOVIA MineSched are tools for creating projects and scenarios for the development of mining operations.

To achieve the goal as quickly as possible, the systems must be linked into a single productive chain. Imagine: you receive data from different systems and sources, but they are available to you only upon request, and besides, this data is transferred to you by a specialist who can change the content at any time.

This leads not only to a decrease in the speed of data acquisition, but also to a loss of accuracy or reliability at one of the stages of data transmission. Therefore, data must be centralized, stored on one platform, in one digital ecosystem, and be available at any time. In addition, it is important to ensure the collaboration of all departments, versioning, data integrity and security.

This task is handled by the 3DEXPERIENCE platform.

Something like this looks like a process without automation. After the survey, the surveyor connects the scanner to the PC, extracts the survey file, converts the data into the appropriate format, opens the file in the GGIS system, creates a surface, performs the necessary manipulations for calculating volumes and generating reports, saves a new version of the surface file on a network resource. To update the block model, it finds the updated survey file, loads it and the corresponding block model, uses the survey file as a new constraint, performs manipulations to calculate volumetric indicators and generate reports.

In the presence of operational data, for example, from dispatch systems, the geologist unloads data from such a system, imports coordinates into the GGIS, forms a new limiter file, if there is actual test data from the laboratory on the network resource, it makes its way to them through a string of folders and loads them, updates the block model, creates references, saves working files, converts the data into the format required for the dispatching system and loads it into this system. It is important not to forget about creating an archive copy of all files.

The automated process of processing and integrating data for mine surveying and geological support of mining operations using GEOVIA Surpac is as follows.

The survey is ready, the surveyor connects the device to the PC, opens GEOVIA Surpac, starts the function of importing and processing survey data, selects from the list what needs to be obtained as a result. The system generates graphical and tabular data, updates the working file on the network resource and saves the previous version of the file. The geologist launches the functions of updating the block model according to the current mine surveying data and / or data from the dispatching systems.

All data is loaded from a network resource / platform, the macro command converts and imports the necessary data, the geologist only needs to select the appropriate settings. After checking the result, using the appropriate functions.

GEOVIA Surpac : Implementation in a Russian mining company

Such a process has been implemented in the mine surveying and geological services at the Kachkanarsky GOK of the EVRAZ company.

1 – Context

EVRAZ KGOK is one of the five largest mining enterprises in Russia. The plant is located 140 km from EVRAZ NTMK, in the Sverdlovsk region. EVRAZ KGOK develops the Gusevogorskoye deposit of titanomagnetite iron ores containing vanadium impurities. The vanadium content makes it possible to smelt high-strength alloy steel grades. The production capacity of the plant is about 55 million tons of iron ore per year. The main consumer of EVRAZ KGOK products is EVRAZ NTMK.

Currently EVRAZ KGOK extracts ore from four open pits with its further processing in crushing, beneficiation, agglomeration and agglomeration shops. The final product (agglomerate and pellets) is loaded into railway cars and sent to consumers, including abroad.

In 2018, EVRAZ KGOK mined over 58.5 million tonnes of ore, produced 3.5 million tonnes of sinter, 6.5 million tonnes of pellets, and about 2.5 million tonnes of crushed stone.

Ore is mined in four open pits: Glavny, Zapadnoye, Severny, as well as the Yuzhniy deposit. From the lower horizons, the ore is delivered by BelAZ, the rock mass is transported to the crushing plant by rail. The quarries use powerful 130-ton dump trucks, modern NP-1 locomotives, excavators with a bucket volume of 12 cubic meters.

The average iron content in the ore is 15.6%, the vanadium content is 0.13%.

The technology for extracting iron ore at EVRAZ KGOK is as follows: drilling – blasting – excavation – transportation to the processing site and overburden to dumps. (source http://rus.evraz.com/enterprise/iron-ore/evraz-kgok/production/ )

2 – An integrated solution

In 2019, the VIST Group automated dispatching system was introduced at the Kachkanar GOK. The implementation of this solution made it possible to increase production control of the operation of mining and transport equipment, the movement of ore from the faces to the transfer points, as well as to promptly receive data on the volume and quality indicators in the faces and at the transfer points.

A two-way integration of the ASD VIST and GEOVIA Surpac systems was carried out, which made it possible to use the obtained data (position of the equipment, the degree of working of the face, the balance of rock mass at transfer points, the distribution of quality at transfer points, etc.) for operational planning and design of mining operations, as well as control the production process at the level of the line manager and the excavator driver.

3 – Implementation of GEOVIA Surpac

Thanks to the developments of the leading geologist S.M. Nekrasov and chief mine surveyor С.М. Некрасова, specialists of the mine surveying and geological departments using GEOVA Surpac tools automated most of the processes for processing mine survey data, design, creating printed documentation, creating geological block models, updating geological and mine surveying information on a network resource.

Now specialists do not need to perform repetitive processes every day, whether it is uploading / downloading a survey from the device / to the device, searching for the necessary data for everyday work in a huge variety of folders. The GEOVIA Surpac macros do this for them. It is important to note that this data is available to all involved professionals across different departments. For example, to open the latest open pit survey, an updated block model,

Automation tools made it easy to integrate GEOVIA Surpac and ASD VIST Group and make this process as simple and fast as possible.

By selecting the appropriate menu in the GEOVIA Surpac panel, the geologist receives from the ASD VIST operational data on the development of the block or data for a specific date and time. This data is used to analyze the current situation and update the block model.

After updating the block model and ore / stripping contacts in GEOVIA Surpac, the geologist uploads this information to the ASD VIST system by pressing one button, after which the data is available to all users in both systems.

By combining the capabilities of the mining equipment positioning toolkit in the ASD VIST Group system and the GEOVIA Surpac tools, the processes of controlling the movement of rock mass from the face to the transfer point, placing the rock mass in the sectors of transfer points, monitoring the balance of the arrival / departure of the rock mass by sectors and maintaining mobile residues were set up. for the period of operational filling.

For this, in GEOVIA Surpac, block models of transshipment points were created, and a methodology for filling them was developed. At the request of the geologist, the process of entering the rock mass into the block model (BM) to the virtual transshipment point, as well as the shipment from it, can be carried out both as a whole for the past period, and in an operational mode.

By placing the BM on filling with the end time, the macro program itself makes a request, after a certain period of time, to retrieve data on excavators carrying out scooping, and also retrieves information on the movement and unloading of vehicles at the transfer point. Thus, at the end of the macro program, current information is generated on the state of the warehouse, the presence of rock mass for a given period of time in a three-dimensional graphical form, and a summary table of the results of operational changes.

This made it possible to quickly track the movement of ore, the balance and distribution of rock mass in the sectors of the transshipment points, as well as to present this information graphically in both systems and to have quick, free and secure access to information for all employees. In particular, according to the leading geologist S.N. Nekrasov.

This process has improved the accuracy of planning shipment in terms of quality from transshipment points to rail transport. He also notes that if earlier they only assumed what was brought to the transshipment points and represented only the average quality value for the sectors, today the indicators are known for each individual sector of the sector.

For a quick analysis of all sectors of transshipment points and the formation of a tabular report in GEOVIA Surpac, a macro command was written that displays and saves graphical information in the specified format. At the same time, there is no need to open the block model of each sector, apply constraints, color the block model by attributes, or manually generate tabular reporting. All this is done with the push of a button.

You can learn more about the process and results of the integration carried out at the Kachkanar GOK in the recording of the webinar “A New Approach to Automation of Planning, Drilling and Blasting Operations and Quality Management at an Enterprise”:

▶ Access the webinar [Russian language]

Obtaining the necessary relevant data at any time, having easy and quick access to them, owning the tools that allow you to exchange and manage this data in various systems and interact with aggregates, opens the way to increasing opportunities for creating a digital twin of your enterprise, which allows you to create more realistic scenarios for your mine plan; and the ability to quickly respond to emerging changes during production.

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