Case Study

Streamlining Mining Systems: Systemiser and Opti-Plan for Complex System Management

This case study examines the practical implementation of Systemiser and OptiPlan in mining operations, showcasing their effectiveness in streamlining complex system management. By leveraging these tools, mining companies achieve enhanced planning, automation, and value optimization, resulting in tangible improvements in productivity and operational efficiency.

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Video 1

The video series showcases how Systemiser can be used to manage knowledge for mining systems and processes. The videos feature the development of a digital twin called OptiPlan for an underground gold mine, which is believed to be the world's first autonomous mine planning system. The videos demonstrate how Systemiser was used to map the current value chain systems and processes, and how it was used collaboratively by stakeholders to design and project manage digital transformations of the mine.

The videos cover various aspects of Systemiser, including its open standard framework, collaboration tools, project management tools, and integrated performance benchmarking. They also showcase how Systemiser combines knowledge and information, and how it can be used to unlock and manage life cycle system knowledge. Overall, Systemiser and OptiPlan aim to be the best tools for managing complex systems, and OptiPlan is a digital twin that optimally plans and schedules activities and events for real-time, tactical, and strategic time frames.

Video 2

This video provides an overview of a standard mining framework used to map the systems, processes, technologies, people, and value streams of Jim's mine. The Open Group's framework is used, which covers the life cycle of discovery, establishment, exploitation, beneficiation, selling, and rehabilitation. The video also explores the ore flow system in Jim's mine using Systemiser, and demonstrates how standardised frameworks make it easy to compare mines, develop reusable best practice processes, plug and play technologies, and benchmark performance.

The video then delves into the current planning processes and technologies being used in Jim's mine, highlighting the challenges and limitations of the current system. The video discusses the importance of changing the working culture and processes, which is often more difficult than changing the technologies. The video concludes by highlighting the new Optiplan, Deswick, and Sandvik planning systems that will replace the current system, and how these new systems will transform the mine's planning and dispatching processes.

Video 3

The video showcases the ongoing design work of Jim's mine to transform its current manual systems into OptiPlan, Deswick, and Sandvik systems. It explores the automated planning and control systems of OptiPlan, which receives short-term plans from Deswick's scheduler and real-time plans from Systemiser's OptiPlan. The video also highlights the need for updates from various processes and applications, including Sandvik, Deswick CAD, and ERP parameters, to ensure OptiPlan's re-optimization of real-time event plans.

The video also touches on the importance of simulation in modelling daily variability of supply, storage, and demand for the transformation to electric Sandvik equipment. The video concludes by emphasising the need for collaboration, communication, and transfer of complex systems knowledge, which will be covered in the next video of the series on Systemiser tools.

Video 4

The video discusses the challenges of capturing and reusing knowledge in complex systems and how Systemiser's simple map language can help manage lifecycle system knowledge in Jim's mine. The video demonstrates how Systemiser collaborates with stakeholders to capture and code reusable system knowledge, increasing human and intellectual capital value. The video also shows how Systemiser's collaboration panel and chat menu enable frontline workers, process owners, and experts to engage and contribute knowledge, analysis, and design input to the map.

The video explains how Systemiser's pageless map of systems and one-minute universal language for systems make it easy for knowledge workers and software developers to work together on digital transformations and modelling software systems like OptiPlan on Jim's mine. The video concludes by highlighting how Systemiser helps set a standard for comprehensibility and how it maps reusable best practice process knowledge so that everyone can clearly understand system complexities in the shortest possible time.

Video 5

The video demonstrates how Systemiser, a collaboration workplace, can integrate process performance and benchmarks into system maps to identify problems and opportunities for improvement. APQC's process framework provides thousands of enterprise process benchmarks for mining enterprises, but miners can be overwhelmed by too many benchmarks and trying to achieve benchmarks can have unintended consequences. OptiPlan, which maximises mine value, can accurately calculate the return on investment of benchmark projects or initiatives and assess hundreds of improvement projects and combinations. Systemiser also provides Smartlines to calculate and display benchmarks inside the process framework, making it easier to audit and understand.

Systemiser can combine the technical value chain processes of a mine with the enterprise support processes of APQC and The Open Group, making it easier to engineer better data structures and flows between the dozens of siloed applications and technologies in mines. Integrating processes and benchmarks helps teams to identify problems and opportunities to improve systems. The video concludes that Systemiser enables knowledge workers to integrate mining technical and enterprise process frameworks using quick start templates from APQC and The Open Group, which helps to manage complex transformation projects.

Video 6

The video showcases how Systemiser, an ecosystem for mapping, analysing, designing, modelling, and benchmarking complex systems, can be used to manage transformation and improvement projects successfully. The video highlights the problems with current project management tools used for feasibility studies and digital transformations, such as Waterfall or Gantt charts, which do not work well during the early stages of mine feasibility studies, as unknowns and new discoveries keep changing the requirements, tasks, and schedule. The video also suggests that Agile methods are better for changing requirements, but not as good as Gantt for managing critical path deadlines and resource constraints.

The video demonstrates how Systemiser unifies Agile, critical path, and critical chain methods and integrates planning with systems design tools. The video shows how teams can group their tasks and locate them inside the processes map where requirements and deliverables are located. The video also highlights how Systemiser empowers teams to seamlessly co-manage tasks using a mix of waterfall, agile, and critical chain methods. The video concludes by demonstrating how best practice project management like PMBOK can become part of the plan, do, check, and act process for lifecycle improvement of complex systems like mining.

Video 7

The video summarises the value proposition of Systemiser and OptiPlan for the mining industry. Mining is facing increasing volatility, uncertainty, and complexity, and most digital transformation projects are failing. Systemiser provides an ecosystem for working with systems knowledge and information, while OptiPlan ensures accurate planning and execution. The strategy is to use Systemiser to maximise intellectual capital and use it in OptiPlan to maximise lifecycle value. The video provides examples of how Systemiser and OptiPlan can be combined with best-of-breed technologies to manage system life cycles and maximise mine value.

Systemiser provides a cloud collaboration ecosystem for successful transformation of complex mine systems with complex technology systems. Standardised process frameworks and examples provide a quick start to customising a mine systems map, and OptiPlan can interface with current planning and control systems with spreadsheets. Stakeholders are motivated to map and share know-how because OptiPlan uses it to automate tedious re-planning iterations to maximise value. Mental models are created visually with process frameworks and simple systems language, and OptiPlan is an example of a computational model that finds and prescribes the best life cycle plan for a complex mine undergoing transformational changes. Stakeholder intimacy is created when everyone can see how their contributions reduce waste activity and increase value streams.