1.3.2 Modelling The whole mining operation from Resource to Market is modelled. While the pit and phase shapes are created in GEOVIA Whittle™, a software package from Dassault Systèmes, the rest of the enterprise is modelled using Prober®, a proprietary optimisation algorithm that optimises for NPV. The role of the Prober-user is to describe the mining systemmathematically and then let the optimiser produce the best mining and processing schedule. This is in opposition to telling the software how to schedule a mining system, as is the traditional approach. Enterprise Optimisation (EO) is a methodology for maximising the life of mine value of mining and mineral processing assets. The methodology uses net present value (NPV) as the metric that is maximised. The technique involves simultaneous optimisation of the entire mining value chain from the mineral resource through to the end product market. EO employs the economic principles of the Theory of Constraints (TOC) and Activity Based Costing (ABC) and utilises the proprietary Prober® E software of Whittle Consulting. EO involves simultaneously optimising all ten steps in the value chain shown in Figure 6.
Figure 6: Mining and mineral processing value chain
A full Whittle Consulting optimisation may include iteration between pit design in GEOVIA Whittle™ and rest-of-system optimisation in Prober®.
Whittle Consulting’s Enterprise Optimisation approach has been founded on the following principles:
1.3.3 Time Value of Money Any methodology for optimising a mining operation, which may have a life of several decades, must take into account the time-value of money. Prober®, Whittle Consulting’s proprietary algorithm for Enterprise Optimisation, discounts future cash-flows to produce a Net Present Value (NPV) that can be directly compared between different scenarios. Theory of Constraints The Theory of Constraints (TOC) was introduced as a management philosophy by Eliyahu M. Goldratt in his 1984 book The Goal . It draws upon System Dynamics, Program Evaluation and Review Technique (PERT) and Critical Path Method (CPM) developed in the mid-20 th century. The central viewpoint of TOC is that a system managed towards a certain goal (e.g. a company managed to produce money) is limited in maximising its output of that goal by constraints. If constraints can be 1.3.4
ReCYN™ Case Study – Martabe Operations
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