Mining Operational Excellence Through Digital Transformation with Dassault Systèmes GEOVIA

Article by Gustavo Pilger , WW GEOVIA R&D Strategy & Management Director, Dassault Systèmes, for Global Mining Review

The market for digital solutions has never been so competitive. Dassault Systèmes has been playing an important role in the technology journey, its industry-proven approach to breaking silos to bring people, processes, and technology together through Virtual Twin Experiences, leveraging a multi-scale and multi-physics (multi-domain) business platform (3DEXPERIENCE), is fundamentally what differentiates it from the competition. GEOVIA, a Dassault Systèmes brand provides end-to-end software solutions for mining, infrastructure, and urban planning environments to drive productivity, efficiency, and sustainability.

The mining value chain is a complex set of interlinked processes that involves many stakeholders from many different disciplines. To enable business transformation, it is paramount to approach the challenge from a standpoint that allows one to connect and interact in real (or near-real) time with people, processes, and technologies that make this chain of interlinked systems. This is what Dassault does. The company provides the path for its clients to realise business transformation. It provides software tools that allow clients to model and simulate processes and how they interact with adjacent (connected) processes before anything is built, in early project development phases, or to correct the train of action on projects already in production to keep chasing value while operating. This eliminates unnecessary waste, reducing risk and minimising material re-handling, while maximising productivity.

For example, how we can change the way we work by designing mines that extract more metal more efficiently and more sustainably (and at the same time comply with ESG standards and associated targets)? A Virtual Twin can help by modelling and simulating likely economic, environmental, and social scenarios for extracting ore to balance efficiency and cost with ESG performance. This enables users to identify their priorities and measure their performance/benchmarks to enhance responsible and sustainable growth. It allows managing permit status, asset agreements, asset licenses, and associated cost analysis, ensuring that everything goes according to plan and schedule.

Dassault recently introduced an additional role to its GEOVIA 3DEXPERIENCE portfolio: Strategic Mine Planner. This role complements the Pit Optimiser role, launched in December 2021, in order to allow the user to develop a comprehensive strategic plan that is robust and reliable, by conducting an evaluation of critical input parameters through multiple scenario analyses from development to closure. It allows users to simultaneously or sequentially apply several advanced value-adding options for optimising capacity to create an optimised and robust mining schedule that prioritises value and ecological responsibility. The main app of the role counts with a novel proprietary optimisation engine (GEOVIA Mine Maximizer – GMX) that is an extension of the Bienstock-Zuckerberg (2009) algorithm. GMX is the solution engine provided with Dassault’s Strategic Mine Planner and Pit Optimiser roles available on the 3DEXPERIENCE platform. It provides increased NPV while significantly speeding up runtimes when compared with commercial solution packages.

In February 2024, Dassault launched the Underground Mine Designer role. This role allows a user to rethink the design approach to underground mining through the evaluation of multiple options thanks to generative parametric modelling. One will be able to generate and evaluate multiple development designs through an automated parametric process, offering optionality assessment of designs. All that is within a ‘Safety by Design’ approach, allowing consideration of safety standards related to underground excavations from physical constraints to geotechnical features. In summary, the new Underground Mine Designer role will allow significant time savings and transparency through a seamless process and data model continuity between different mining levels, development areas, and practical access designs.

Additionally, in 2024 Dassault has planned four 3DEXPERIENCE releases, in which it will keep enhancing its two newly released roles, as well as its established 3DEXPERIENCE mining roles: Geology Modeler, Geoscience Referential Manager, Earth Engineering Coordinator, Pit Optimiser, and Surface Mine Designer.

In Surpac 2024, Dassault introduced four caving roles: GEOVIA Cave Footprint Finder, GEOVIA Cave Planning Manager, GEOVIA Cave Scheduler, and GEOVIA Cave Management System. These roles mirror those traditionally available in GEMS, which will eventually be discontinued. Therefore, going forward, GEOVIA’s solution for caving is through Surpac only – which is connected to the 3DEXPERIENCE through Dassault’s POWER’BY strategy.

In summary, in 2024 Dassault will continue to enhance and support its traditional desktop portfolio, build a new portfolio on a new and modern technology stack on 3DEXPERIENCE, and seamlessly connect its traditional desktop portfolio to 3DEXPERIENCE for expanding workflows and business processes.

Source: Global Mining Review