How simulation tools can drive innovation and improvement in mining processes.

This video shows how simulation allows users to test and validate options in a virtual playground. Bring rigour to your improvement program and test ideas without risk.

Bring visibility to areas that are often hidden using traditional simulation techniques. Agent-based modelling techniques allows us to simulate and analyse individual and asset responses, identify emerging behaviours and most importantly understand why events occur.

What this video covers

the key really is that the simulation

tools provide you with a a virtual

sandpit or playground that you can

really run a mark in so a lot of the

questions you've got a lot of the

hypotheses you have in terms of why

something happens a lot of the the

hairbrained ideas you've got about how

to improve things you can actually go

and test you can you can put through

those simulations and see what the

impact is you can then get the feedback

from the first set of runs and continue

to go and interrogate and and run

different scenarios I think one of the

one of the entertaining things about the

mining industry is that uh every mine's

different and everybody's an expert so

uh every time we go to a m site they do

things slightly differently because

they've got slightly different

conditions um and everybody always has a

view on how best to operate their area I

mean it's only natural you sit there you

see what's going on and you formul views

uh the simulation environment actually

gives everybody a standard place and a

standard set of tools to go and and and

have a play and answer those questions

it allows you to bring rer to your

improvement process because you sort of

sit there and go no you know for any any

given idea it needs to go through this

process you've got a a standardized tool

or a standard I set of rules that's that

applies um to represent your plant or

your your supply chain um and therefore

when you're testing different ideas

there's a there's a standard comparison

that takes place so you've really got

that that level playing Ground that all

of the Improvement ideas compete against

each other or one of the the things is

every time you say get a new technology

that comes through uh certainly well I

was up on site every couple of weeks you

get the next night all salesman coming

through with a product that have solve

we problems uh what this enables you to

do is actually go and see how you might

incorporate that technology into your

existing operations and will it deliver

what what the individuals say uh the

other thing it allows you to do is go

what needs to be true for something to

happen so you can go and say look for me

to you know improve Revenue by 10% what

needs to happen in my PL so it allows

you to then go and identify targeted

areas for the Improvement but you can

then go and get the the experts sort of

hled around to then go and work out

specific actions or projects that that

can improve the performance in in that

area so that's really one of those those

key benefits one of the other benefits

is that it actually makes a visible

things that are that are currently

hidden with the traditional approach so

the traditional approaches tend to use

distributions and averages for the data

um and quite often some of those factors

particularly around human behavior and

policies that are set by the

organizations or sort of those higher

level rules one I mean my policies um

the impact of those is hidden because

there's no way to actually test how each

of the the the the individuals or or

agents response in in the current

traditional simulation techniques with

the agent base modeling technique in our

complex systems frame work it actually

allows us to bring those elements of

human behavior and policy into the

scenario so we can look at you know the

impact of say different training levels

with truck drivers so we can sit there

and run several profiles for for truck

drivers how they might respond in in

different

situations um and the simulation will

actually help us identify emerging

behaviors or or situations that we

haven't seen before um and again it's

all in that ver ual environment so it

then allows you to determine is that a

good outcome or a bad outcome um but

also why what led to that outcome so if

it's bad you've then got an idea of what

steps you might need to put in or what

controls you might need to put in to

stop a particular event occurring so in

mining for example if we've got some

human behavior and one of the outcomes

of a scenario is is Serious injury to a

to an individual we can actually unpack

why did that event occur and they look

at putting them control in place which

cuts that pathway off so there's a real

ability I believe in the future to

really test some of our our policies and

behaviors to drive a much safer work

environment um I I know that autonomy is

one of the big drivers for removing

people from operations and therefore

making it safer and that's certainly

true um but several organizations are

not progressing towards autonomy because

perhaps of concerns on cost or

efficiency so again the simulation tools

would enable you to go and test various

methods and various pathways through

your autonomy and therefore make a make

a considered business decision on on how

to progress down that path so the world

you waster when it comes to to

Improvement and Innovation you could

really test any sort of mad cap crazy

idea you've got um and see what the

impact is see what the cost is and and

really run that test um and with a

simulation tool that the business is

accepted as representative you've then

got why you've then got a level of

credibility in the tool um and it

becomes a lot easier then to to

crystallize people into action because

at the end of the day the only way that

a tool is is of any value is if you can

get someone to do something to address a

problem to improve a situation

um having the best tool in the world

that that that doesn't actually generate

something actionable for for someone to

go and carry out and improve the

situation isn't worth anything so it's

that link through to making sure your

simulation set of tools generates those

actions so for

me the type of tool sure then you know

there's better tools and worse tools um

but even even the sort of the best tool

in the world without the without the

right sort of crystallization of action

uh isn't worth anything so it's that

link to action that's the key for any of

the simulation environments so one

additional way that the simulation tools

help drive that Innovation is around

policies and and testing of

policies one good example of that is if

we imagine an underground line with with

trubs and and loaders and uh every time

a truck's finished loading it trots off

to to dump it uh at sort of The Crusher

and uh the loader sits there and there's

several things it can do it can sit

there with a full load waiting for the

truck to come back or it can build an

interim stop pile and then go back to

the go back to the face grab another

load come back and actually be building

an interim stock pile while the the

truck's away dumping and returning uh

both of those have different impacts and

different times each one may be

preferred what the simulation

environment an alls you to do is put in

place rules to test with scenarios about

having that interim stock piling

available or not available or available

under certain conditions or not and you

can incorporate the costs and the

queuing and the congestion and the

rehandle and all of those elements that

that go into whether that's the right

decision or not that at the moment may

be sort of blanket rules that are put in

place yes we will do it no we won't or

made on the Fly by a human um we

actually can set up some guidelines and

some rules or if you like a Playbook uh

for the supervisors and The Operators to

use when they're when they're actually

in the middle of operating and and the

reason that becomes more important in an

underground environment is many times

you don't get updates on what's

happening through the course of the day

um until the end of shift because

there's a there's a tranch of challenges

involved in the communications so you

were effectively providing instruction

for a 12-hour period with limited

feedback in terms of how successful

those are so if you can provide the

operators and the supervisors with more

context about how they might operate

through the day and what they might need

to change uh then that's going to lead

to a better operation so really that

that detailed policy level uh simulation

and and sandpit testing uh becomes

really important I think is really where

we see a lot of the the initial value

for those tools is helping the front

line answer some of those questions in

that execution time fry