Eltirus

Eltirus founder Steve Franklin looks at the past, present and future of digital transformation in Australian quarries. In 2016, Eltirus collaborated with Fulton Hogan at the Stonemaster quarry near Brisbane as one of the early adopters of digital transformation. Since that time, many of what were then novel ideas have become commonplace across the industry.

We thought it was time to revisit where things were, how we see things now and what the future might look like.

Then

Survey
Site surveys were generally conducted once a year by aerial survey. The aerial survey companies determined site extraction volumes for royalty calculation purposes and not much else. Drone survey was in its infancy and regarded as little more than a novelty.

Geology
While geological drilling was conducted, there was very little done with the data. At best, cross sections were created in printed in paper reports and there was generally no way to correlate these to the field.

Quarry design
Most design work was conducted in either AutoCAD or Geovia Surpac. Getting accurate survey data to design with was incredible difficult – I remember spending a week manually editing the contours from a site flyover to try and create a surface to design to. If software was used, it was generally to create concept designs or final pit shells (often without ramps).

Drone in a box and Lidar technology will change the way we use drones. Image: Eltirus

Now

Drone survey
Drone survey has tended to become ubiquitous. Companies are either employing drones themselves or getting contractors to fly their sites for them.

The focus tends to be towards drone survey for stockpile measurement, with a lesser number of sites flying “whole of site” on a regular basis. Where whole of site flights are conducted, they are generally not flown using a “terrain following” method, resulting in reduced accuracy where there are significant differences in elevation between the top and bottom of the quarry.

While drone technology is commonplace on many sites, we find that the results can be quite variable. While a whole of site survey can “look ok”, the reality is often very different, particularly if the site uses Ground Control Points (GCPs) to provide accuracy rather than high accuracy systems such as post-processing kinematic and real-time kinematic (RTK).

By way of example, if the site relies on GCPs for accuracy, it often only needs one or two of them to be moved or lost to destroy the accuracy in that area, resulting in warping that you won’t see unless you do a cross-section comparison or other quality check.

Technical teams
Most quarry companies do not have their own technical teams with many relying on a range of small consulting groups and independent contractors to perform these functions for them. This is often further broken down at state and even site level such that there is not a consistent approach to data management. In many cases, consulting groups and contractors will have a more comprehensive set of data than the client. This is risky.

We have seen instances where an independent contractor has performed all of the geological or engineering work for a client over many years, only to get sick or go out of business and with it, went much of the client’s data.

Even worse is the fact that because work is conducted by multiple or independent parties, there is often a lack of consistency in conventions such as file naming or data structures. Not only does this increase the likelihood of errors and data loss it results in a level of risk that is unacceptable.

Mining and geological software
Where companies are creating their own technical teams, they are also facing the need to update their software. Advanced geological software such as Leapfrog Geo is a quantum leap when compared to past systems. Instead of manually having to add data and reinterpret models, new software allows for automatic addition and re-creation of models, saving hundreds of hours of work.

Likewise, mining software programs such as Deswik.Suite can manage and manipulate massive point clouds, create and manipulate solids and automatically create quarry designs based on geotechnical and operational parameters.

These new generation software packages open up the opportunity to provide new insights, get work done faster and make it accessible to other stakeholders.

It is now possible to provide site users with complex extraction and geological models through web browsers that give new levels of access and insight and that facilitate collaborate between technical and field users and allow people in the field to provide real time feedback about what they are encountering to help ensure that technical staff are continually updated on developments and can update the models to increase both their accuracy and relevance.

Electric equipment is starting to become more and more available. Image: Eltirus

Future

Drone survey
Given the free AusCORS network widely available across the country, we see this ultimately displacing paid RTK services and sites relying on GCPs. We also expect to see a rise in “drone in a box” technology as the issues around flying beyond line of site are resolved.

Data management
The key thing we see as important is providing better, more consistent access to data for decision making. Whether you choose to work with external partners or build your own technical team, putting in place the workflows, approvals, data structures, file naming and colouring conventions is vital. We see these systems being setup in such a way as to provide secure access to all relevant stakeholders who need access to it – internal or external.

Eltirus Enable facilitates forward looking prediction and better management control. Image: Eltirus

The types of data that we expect to see centralised:

• All geological drill hole and sampling data with relevant test results attached and accessible by the relevant geological modelling systems.
• Geological modelling systems that contain all the different geological models for each site and the different versions and interpretations of these.
• Optimised pit designs and stages for each site.
• Detailed designs for each site and the related survey files for consumption by 3D machine guidance, drill rig hole navigation systems, autonomous equipment

In all instances we would also expect to see systems that logged who added/changed and edited data to ensure that there is a clear chain of responsibility of action. Ultimately, these systems (Deswik.MDM is a good example) will also include approvals workflows and the attachment of all relevant unstructured documents to them. These systems already exist in the mining industry and could be re-purposed for the construction materials industry.

AI
While there is a lot of discussion about AI and its potential impact on the industry, we see it following hand in glove with work carried out to sort out data management first. For example, we have a knowledge base of some five hundred articles detailing how we do our work. This is probably our greatest asset and we spend a considerable effort on creating and maintaining it.

The opportunity to access this knowledge through an AI engine which can also potentially look at how we have done similar jobs and studies in the past will be game changing.

Likewise, where it could look at geological data in one quarry and consider similarities or problem-solving approaches from other sites might result in substanital gains. Note that the key thing is bringing the data together and in a consistent fashion, if the true value of it is to be realised.

Resource nPV optimisation
One of the greatest advances that will occur is around resource optimisation to maximise net present value (NPV). Tools such as Deswik.GO can consider the pit shape and extraction sequence as determined by cost and revenue, geological and geotechnical data, mining rules and capital requirements, bringing a substantial difference to pit design and scheduling – in fact, it’s a quantum leap and deserves considerable attention at COO, CFO and board level

The ability to be able to clearly determine the amount of material needs to be stripped and when can improve resource NPV by 20-40 per cent. It also provides accurate stage shells for effective scheduling (the absence of which is a primary barrier to this activity) and help ensure that critical supply contracts can be met and reserves better understood.

Operational reporting systems
As we gain access to more and more data systems, whether they be machine telematics systems, weighbridge, environmental and energy sensors etc, we also tend to struggle to make sense of it all.

Operational data reporting systems like Eltirus Enable help to bring together all the different types of data into a cohesive whole and provide an “executive summary”. This is invaluable not only for providing that overview of critical forward-looking metrics, but also to provide a clean, comprehensive and collated data set that can then be effectively utilised by machine learning and AI tools.

Autonomous haulage
Autonomous operation is all around us and has been for many years. While there is much discussion about whether you could trust to drive a manned vehicle in an area where autonomous haulers are in operation, we forget the fact that every time we fly in a commercial airliner, the vast majority of the flying is done by the aircraft itself – including landing.

By way of example, auto-land technology has been around since 1968, and I can’t remember anyone expressing any concern about this before getting on a plane. Likewise, we see driverless trains and an increasing number of machines on quarries that provide a level of autonomous service.

These comments are in no way to ignore or play down potential safety concerns, but more to say that we have solved similar, difficult autonomy problems before and with an extremely high level of safety and can likely solve this one too.

Innovation is the future. There are exciting developments in hand and on the way – make the most of them.

This article was originally published in Quarry Magazine – click here to view original article.

To find out more, contact Steve Franklin on +61 474 183 939 or steve.franklin@eltirus.com