Global RPM (RPM) made another software acquisition by entering into a research partnership with Canada-based MIRARCO. The agreement gives RPM ownership of three mine planning optimization software products that will strengthen RPM’s design and planning product suites and in particular strengthen the Planning Optimization Tool product.

The acquisition is part of a three-year collaborative research partnership with MIRARCO, a research arm of Laurentian University. The organization was instrumental in the initial research leading to the development of RPM’s schedule optimization tool. SOT, along with Attain and Surface SOT, were products acquired by RPM as part of its July 2020 acquisition of Revolution Mining Software.

MIRARCO has developed three distinct but complementary underground mine planning optimization products, which RPM has agreed to acquire and market under this agreement. These products extend and complement the functionality of RPM’s mining optimization software solutions in the areas of advanced assessment, geosequencing and ventilation.

As part of the collaboration agreement, RPM and MIRARCO will continue to work together on research and development projects that offer demonstrable and innovative solutions for the mining industry.

The Advanced Assessment Module (AVM) facilitates the generation of optimized underground mine plans that are robust to product prices and uncertain ore grades. The mine planner specifies product price distributions over the life of the mine and ore grades. AVM will then optimize the mine life schedule, maximizing the net present value (NPV) of the operation.

The geosequencing module (GSM) facilitates the generation of optimized underground mine programs respecting the constraints of site sequencing motivated by geotechnical considerations. The mine planner selects the site sequencing rules and GSM automatically generates alternative sets of site-to-site dependencies, or geosequencing scenarios, while applying the selected rules. The result is an optimized mine life schedule based on NPV based on geotechnical considerations of the mine.

The ventilation constraint module (VCM) generates optimized underground mine schedules based on ventilation constraints. Through interaction with a ventilation solver, VCM automatically generates constraints based on the airflow over the equipment for each ventilation district. Using these constraints, VCM generates optimized VAN mine life schedules that are achievable from a ventilation perspective.

The acquisition was finalized on December 17.

Visit www.RPMGlobal.com for more information.