The past 10 years has seen use of
computers become widespread in the mining/exploration industry (including coal,
precious and base metals, oil/gas and industrial minerals). This paper will
concentrate on the use of computers as a tool to provide technical solutions
(including data management, mine planning and operational support) to this
industry rather than the use of computers to aid accounting, maintenance and
inventory (commercial') applications.
This paper will review the
processes and benefits of the use of computers in mining. We then review the use
of technical computing locally here in New Zealand and see what business
benefits local users have found from using computers in
mining.
We have, in research for this
paper, spoken with mining software vendors from around the world to find out
what is currently the best practice' in the industry. The paper will then list
what those vendors see as the ultimate improvement on the cards for the future
of mining software.