PRESS RELEASE: Through Micromine software, mining and exploration companies can attain an in-depth understanding of their project, so that prospective regions can be targeted more effectively, increasing the chance of a project's success. It includes tools for modelling, estimation, design, optimisation and scheduling.

Micromine technical product manager Frank Bilki commented on the latest release: "We are focused on making our client's job easier, these enhancements will assist Micromine users to increase efficiency, save time and improve the decision-making process for managers."

A key focus for the development team over the past 12 months has been to improve the overall usability and functionality of the Pit Design tool.

Pit design presents a crucial step in the mine planning process for mining engineers and can ultimately influence the overall success of a project. Micromine 2018 Pit Design tool assists users to simplify the pit design process, providing users with access to the tools required to optimise a block model.

Designing and evaluating different pit designs for optimised models can often be iterative and time-consuming for engineers and mine planners. The Micromine team said it recognised this problem and developed a new feature that quickly converts the results of the pit optimiser into an operationally sound pit design.

Users no longer need to worry about string directions, fixing crossovers, smoothing strings or manual intervention to construct complex ramp systems. The new Optimised Shell options can be used to automatically produce pit contours that respect the extents of the optimised pit shell.

It includes a setting that can be used to control the degree of smoothing applied to the auto-generated contours, so a design can obey the shape of the optimised shell or be smoothed to produce an operationally practical design.

Design parameters can be set to account for variable design configuration (bench heights, batter slopes, berm width) by elevation or based on geotechnical zones.

The tool can also facilitate the inclusion of ramps and prompts the user if a decision needs to be made about a ramp system.

According to MICROMINE, with the enhanced Pit Design tool, mine planners can now spend less time preparing designs and more time evaluating different scenarios.