Many African mining companies are embarking upon digital mining initiatives in an effort to create an integrated technology application landscape of seamless information flow. This has resulted in a number of vendors and organisations providing software solutions tailored-made to improve the mine’s performance.
Mining software solutions covers the entire mining process from geological exploration, 3D mine design to production management and control including data management solutions.
The solutions enable faster, more holistic strategic and operational decision for mine planning & scheduling (including open pit and underground), mine-to-port logistics (including rail, stockpile, and port planning and scheduling), concentrator, smelter and refinery planning and scheduling.
In addition, the software solutions for mines help increase the efficiency of capital projects associated with the design, procurement, and construction of mines and processing plants, as well as operation and maintenance of the mining fleet and production equipment.
To ensure the above mentioned success factors are achieved; mining companies today are replacing their existing patchwork software solutions with a single, comprehensive enterprise resource planning (ERP) solution. ERP solutions have been especially beneficial for mining firms based in Africa; where it is very common to have offices and sites spread across long distances both in the country and even across international borders in the continent.
ERP solutions allow for data to be accessed from smartphones and other portable devices, this is advantageous to sales people as they are the ones who primarily work offsite and require proper access to information to negotiate on prices and contracts. These solutions have helped mining companies achieve operational excellence, and even drive sustainable growth.
