Accurate, high quality modelling is one of Micromine’s key strengths and the latest release of the software suite Micromine 2020.5 enables engineers to take their models to a new level. We sat down with some of the key team members working on this release to hear their thoughts on the progress in technology, and of the general mining industry. We are speaking today to Andy Esmaili.
Tell us a bit about who you are and what you did for this software release?
I am a mining engineer and one of the technical product analysts at Micromine. My primary focus is on developing the mine design tools within the product.
What are you most excited for in this release?
There are countless gems in Micromine 2020.5. Personally, I am most excited about the added support for importing As-Drilled holes to ring designs. The reason for this is that whilst we typically add new features in response to client requests, this particular feature was not driven by a client. I think this feature could potentially change the way our clients operate and am hoping that they will utilize it to develop better planning and reconciliation protocols.
What was the most challenging aspect that you/the programmers developed?
A new feature in surface blast design was probably more challenging than I anticipated. This is another area we are continually improving.
One of the challenging parts of software development is ensuring the program has rules for handling anything the users throws at it, even if it is technically invalid or something that a user is never going to do. This was a challenging aspect of implementing this feature.
What capabilities offered in this version do you think will affect the market the most?
I don’t often think about the “market” as a whole because everyone’s requirements are different. I think about the day to day end users, the engineers, geo’s or other mining personnel that rely on Micromine on a daily basis. For them it’s the little things that make the most difference, the minor improvements that can significantly improve their workflows or save them a few extra minutes a day. There are many of those in 2020.5.
Is Micromine 2020.5 an industry leader/innovative product? Why?
Micromine has been around for over 30 years so it is certainly an industry leader. As for Micromine 2020.5, we worked very hard to give clients some exciting new stuff in a very short development cycle. I think that in itself is rather innovative.
Where do you see the future of Mining?
I think future is in automation, faster machines, faster algorithms, and integration between the various mine planning, fleet management systems.
Micromine 2020.5 will be released later this month. For more information and to see some examples of the exciting features the team have been working on visit the 2020.5 page.
