Engineering and Mining Journal - Whether the market is copper, gold, nickel, iron ore, lead/zinc, PGM, diamonds or other commodities, E&MJ takes the lead in projecting trends, following development and reporting on the most efficient operating pr
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MINING SOF TWARE management structure within Trakka, and are applicable to any time-series data across multiple industries. Maintenance or other action recommendations are sent to the client via email and are based on the rules as developed by the client and Dingo. Dingo offers an Expert Analysis option to the rules-based solution, in which Dingo experts provide a daily review and analysis of component and asset data. Based on the data and their analysis, Dingo provides to the client prioritized maintenance actions either via email or, in emergency situations, by telephone. Along with the recommendations, Dingo will provide unique troubleshooting guides exclusive to the type and model of equipment being analyzed. Dealing with Documents in the 'Big Data' Era Aconex, provider of project collaboration solutions for the mining and other industries, announced its selection by Alderon Iron Ore Corp. for use at Alderon's Kamistiatusset (Kami) iron ore project in western Labrador. Alderon, a Canada- based iron ore development company, chose the Aconex platform to manage the huge volume of documents shared among the geographically dispersed organizations involved in the multiparty project. ÒAconex is helping us keep our project on track,Ó said Bernard Potvin, executive vice president of project delivery at Alderon. ÒIt's crucial that all of our global teams, from China to St. John's, have realtime access to current documentation around the clock. The resulting increase in productivityÑfor administration, information management and personnel tracking and reportingÑhas shortened document turnaround time among team members, directly improving our bottom line.Ó Prior to Aconex, Alderon had not deployed a third-party collaboration solution to manage the hundreds of thousands of documents involved in Kami, with 150plus document types ranging from AutoCad drawings and 3-D models to contracts and procurement materials. Previously, correspondence and collaboration among participating companies had been conducted by email, on various internal servers and over additional channels. Aconex said Alderon should now be able to more efficiently manage correspondence, documents and workflows after implementation of its solution. An important benefit, according to Aconex, is ease of deployment and local support, which enabled the project team to become fully operational on the Aconex platform in a matter of weeks from the day of implementation. ÒIn the age of Big Data and multiparty collaboration, there's an increasingly massive amount of information being created, and companies are forced to deal with the deluge or be left behind.Ó said Leigh Jasper, CEO of Aconex. ÒWe've witnessed first-hand how our clients have overcome that challenge to streamline their processes and realize major cost savings and productivity gains, and ultimately improved profitability.Ó Aconex said its suite of solutions enables project managers to reduce the cost and risk inherent in capital projects of all sizes and improve efficiency, productivity and accountability for all project participants. Aconex claims 280,000 users among its customer base, which includes large mining companies, nine of the world's top 10 engi- Setting Standards The Open Group, a global vendor- and technology-neutral consortium that includes among its membership Vale, Rio Tinto and Fortescue Metals Group as well as a number of industry-related suppliers of various services and technologies, recently approved the Exploration and Mining Business Reference Model (EM Model) as an Open Group technical standard. This is the first approved standard for the natural resources industry developed by the Exploration, Mining, Metals and Minerals (EMMM) Forum of The Open Group. The EMMM Forum is a global, vendor-neutral collaboration where members work to create a reference framework containing applicable standards for the exploration and mining industry. The forum functions to realize sustainable business value for the organizations within the industry through collaboration, and to support vendors in their delivery of technical and business solutions. The EM Model is being touted as the first step toward establishing a blueprint for organizations in the natural resources industry, providing standard operating practices and support for vendors delivering technical and business solutions to the industry. ÒDesigned to cater to business activities across a variety of different types of mining organizations, the model is helping companies align both their business and technical procedures to provide better measures for shared services, health, safety and environmental processes,Ó said Sarina Viljoen, senior consultant at Real IRM and director of EMMM Forum. ÒI can confirm that the business reference model was accepted as an Open Group standard and will now form part of the standards information base.Ó ÒUsing the EM Model as a reference with clients allows us to engage with any client and any mining method. Since the model first went public I have not used anything else as a basis for discussion,Ó said Mike Woodhall, a mining executive with MineRP, a provider of 64 E&MJ; • APRIL 2013 mining technical software, support and mining consulting services. ÒThe EM Model captures the mining business generically and allows us and the clients to discuss further levels of detail based on understanding the specifics of the mining method. This is one of the two most significant parts of the exercise: the fact we have a multiparty definitionÑno one person could have produced the modelÑand the fact that we could capture it legibly on one page.Ó Viljoen said that forum member organizations find the collaboration especially useful, as it drives insight and clarity on shared challenges. ÒThe forum has built on the very significant endorsement of its first business process model by Gartner in its report Process for Defining Architecture in an Integrated Mining Enterprise, 2020. ÒIn the report, Gartner suggests that companies in the mining industry look to enterprise architectures as a way of creating better efficiencies and integration across the business, information and technology processes within mining companies,Ó said Viljoen. Gartner highlighted the following features of the EM Model as being particularly important in its approach, differing from many traditional models that have been developed by mining companies themselves: ¥ BreadthÑcovers all aspects of mining and mining-related activities; ¥ Scale-independentÑsuitable for any size businesses, even the largest of enterprise corporations; ¥ Product and Mining-method NeutralÑsupports all products and mining methods; and ¥ Extended and Extensible ModelÑprovides a general level of process detail that can be extended by organizations to the activity or task level, as appropriate. The EM Model is available for free download from The Open Group Bookstore at https://www2.opengroup.org/ogsys/catalog/C135. www.e-mj.com