Economic Benefits:

Increase total return of investment
Extending plant life through the achievement of maximized utilization of the available geological resources.

Reduce costs of plant operation
Planning consistent raw material composition from the geological resource by effective geological modelling and short-term planning cycles within a final life of mine framework.

Reduce costs of quarry planning
Reduce costs of project planning through the increased availability of critical data for decision-making.  Alternative planning strategies can be tested in minutes as compared to months with manual methods, weeks with other non-optimised software solutions.

Minimizing of additive stockpiling and re-handling cost
Through the achievement of minimized variability in raw material supply from the geological resource, additive consumption can be effectively planned and costs contained. 

Our cement solution includes a number of raw material management levels that provide processes and procedures for head office and operational technical staff.

Level 1
The calculation of the resource, reserves and life of the quarry allowing you to quantify your mineral resource assets and protecting your natural capital

Level 2
Maximising the life of the operation by scheduling the raw material in the long term to meet corporate and operational objectives.  For example, schedules can be produced against multiple targets including lime saturation factor, silica modulus and aluminium ratio targets. In addition other targets can be set to reduce contaminants like MgO and Alkalis. The purpose of schedules is to deliver a practical, consistent quality of feed to the crusher by reducing the variability and standard deviation in the raw material from the quarry.

Level 3
Plant process flow optimisation (PPFO) allows the operation to adapt to market conditions including a change of product/s specification and pricing. PPFO permits the quality-controlled raw material from the quarry to be modelled through the crusher and pre-homogenising cycles. The introduction of external stockpiles or sweaters allows the raw feed to be corrected to a very high plant specification before entering the raw mill. Multiple product opportunities can be considered by adjusting quarry outputs, alternative additives and plant targets.

Level 4
Operational Scheduling by linking the quarry and plant. Short term schedules are generated within the life of quarry schedule so that the long term objectives can be honoured. The short schedules are updated with operational survey data and blast hole information to drive the daily production planning. Information from the plant (either from LIMS or cross belt analyser) can be used to reconcile the actual with planned raw material that allows modifications in the production planning to be made. Real time production planning is possible using live analytical data, truck dispatch systems with GPS equipment.

In 2003, 3 out of the 5 largest global cement producers (Lafarge, Cemex and Italcementi) use Datamine Software in their quarry planning cycle.  In total the Datamine Group has over 35 cement sites using its software for a range of uses including; databases, geological modelling, quarry optimisation and long term planning, quarry design, short term planning, virtual reality and environmental impact analysis.