Brisbane, Australia – April 19, 2016. Today, Modular Mining Systems (Modular) and RungePincockMinarco (RPM) announced a strategic alliance to deliver an integrated solution to bridge the gap between planning and operations for elevated precision and optimised efficiencies to enhance mine productivity. The alliance builds on RPM’s expertise in planning and scheduling and Modular’s expertise in systems integration and mine management solutions.
The integration of the systems will support bi-directional communication between the companies’ market leading products – RPM’s XECUTE® ultra-short term planning and HAULSIM® haulage simulation software, with Modular’s DISPATCH® Fleet Management and ProVision® High-Precision Machine Guidance solutions. Shift plans and production targets will be dynamically used as control parameters for execution by the DISPATCH and ProVision solutions. The real-time execution progress will automatically feed back into the planning to refine the next short interval schedule, fostering collaboration among all stakeholders from planning, production, maintenance and operations.
“Modular has always recognised the benefits of building relationships with organisations whose innovative technologies and unique perspectives expand upon our own,” said Luiz Steinberg, President and CEO at Modular. “We are committed to improving efficiency across the mining value chain, and this relationship with RPM will bring to market a greatly enhanced, streamlined mine management solution that delivers greater gains to our customers by closing the gap between planning and execution.”
The integrated solutions will allow mines to monitor progress to plan and proactively respond to operational challenges that are inevitable in a mining operation. Compliance to plan will improve, allowing the operation to deliver the correct material to the correct location at the correct time, resulting in a continuous workflow with production optimised to meet planned delivery capacity.
The technology foundation of this cooperation is built upon industry standards, which are important in the achievement of openness, transparency and collaboration among systems, processes, and people. By combining their unique areas of expertise and experience, the companies are creating a mining framework based on the ISA‑95 Business to Manufacturing Markup Language (B2MML) which facilitates the sharing of data among systems. As early adopters of the ISA-95 standard, RPM and Modular are excited about the release of the ISA-95 mining messaging profile and view it as a major step forward for the mining industry.
“The strategic collaboration with Modular is a critical part of our strategy,” said Richard Mathews, CEO of RPM. “When we set out three years ago to deliver Enterprise solutions ‘below the line’ with mining companies our vision was clear. RPM is changing the goalposts around how mining companies extract value from their mining value chain. We are not a technology company working on products delivering more desktop, siloed solutions. We are delivering to mining companies enterprise-wide, collaborative solutions that enable a step-change in mining operations and this collaboration is a leading example.”
Both companies will be at MINExpo 2016 in September, where more information will be available.
About Modular Mining Systems, Inc.
Founded in 1979, Modular Mining Systems, Inc. is the market-leading provider of powerful information management solutions that meet the needs of both surface and underground mining operations worldwide. Modular is committed to delivering state-of-the-art mine management technologies in the areas of production, machine guidance, equipment health, and operator safety. Modular employs close to 700 employees in 10 globally-distributed offices, with systems deployed at 250 client sites, including 18 of the 20 largest mines in the world. For more information, visit: http://www.modularmining.com/
About RungePincockMinarco (RPM Global)
RungePincockMinarco, founded in 1968, is the world’s largest independent group of mining technical experts. We have local expertise in all mining regions and are experienced across all commodities and mining methods. Listed on the Australian Securities Exchange on 27 May 2008 (ASX: RUL), RPM Global is the global leader in the provision of advisory consulting, technology and professional development solutions to the mining industry with expertise achieved through our work in over 118 countries. We operate offices in 18 locations across 12 countries on five continents. For more information, visit: http://www.rpmglobal.com/