A chart of the mining industry’s work-force age distribution for most of the lead-ing industrial nations would be roughly hammock-shaped, with a peak at one end of the chart representing senior personnel, a lower peak at the other end indicating younger workers just entering the workforce, and a long trough in the middle calling attention to a scarcity of experienced, mid-career workers, technicians, engineers and managers. In the U.S., for example, Federal Mine Safety and Health Administration data show that 46% of the country’s energy and mining workforce will be eligible to retire within five years—and it’s likely that there will not be enough younger workers avail-able to replace them, leaving mining em-ployers with an unavoidable need to depend more on technology. It’s safe to say that a significant portion of mining’s future work-force will be silicon-based devices, not car-bon-based life forms, but the need for user-friendly software will be ongoing.

The situation presents both an opportu-nity and a challenge to mining software developers. The opportunity: Younger work-ers have grown up on a diet of video games, computer-based educational programs and electronic technologies that seem to advance at a logarithmic, not linear, rate; in other words, they’re comfortable working with powerful software-based tools in a way that their more-senior workmates and managers may never be.

The challenge for software providers is to design programs that perform increas-ingly sophisticated tasks to meet industry needs, without making those programs too difficult to use by staff members who may not have the time or opportunity to obtain extensive training in their use, or the expe-rience to interpret their results effectively. Advances in computing power, graphics speed and storage capacity will continue to drive software capabilities—and the likely results will be a continuation of what the current generation of mining-related soft-ware offers: increased modularity in design to allow tailoring of integrated software packages to specific customer needs; new approaches for compiling, reporting and presenting vast volumes of data in more meaningful ways; and improved collabora-tive capabilities that cater to widely scat-tered and often remote workforce locations.

Software of various types is involved in every stage of modern mining. In many instances, programs designed for general use are perfectly suitable for mining appli-cations. But increasingly, the demands of a fast-changing industry require capabilities and features tailored more closely to user needs. Here are some examples of the most recent offerings in both types of software products.

Graphics, on the Ground
Eureka, the latest product release from mining technology developer Maptek, is illustrative of the modern software genre. It’s designed to help explorationists satisfy the global demand for minerals, according to Maptek CEO Barry Henderson, who noted that the program’s ability to allow information to be analyzed and exploited at a very large scale represents a paradigm shift in the way exploration data is used.

“A few years ago, an exploration com-pany asked us for help in viewing seismic sections. Our software was 3-D, the sec-tions were in 2-D and they really needed to see where those sections were in 3-D space. Once we’d solved that problem, we realized that we could bring in other types of data and this was the catalyst for devel-oping Eureka,” Henderson said.

Eureka allows large datasets with mil-lions of points such as airborne magnetic and radiometric surveys, space shuttle topography data and imagery to be viewed in a single 3-D environment. Interacting with the spatially located data in context allows geologists to analyze the relation-ships, and confirm their intuition.

According to Maptek, Eureka offers “much more than a viewing platform.”

Maptek Eureka offers tools for efficiently and effectively assessing and interpreting seismic and geophysical data.

Intelligent tools convert seismic time data to depth without ignoring important drillhole information. Powerful graphics allow geolo-gists to see the big picture over vast regions, and also explore local targets in detail.

The new Eureka Field tablet offers tab-ular data entry by means of drop-down lists, handwriting recognition or a virtual keyboard. Logged data can be synchro-nized between the tablet and Eureka desk-top application in real time using Wi-Fi or 3G connections.

Meanwhile, MICROMINE recently launched its latest geological field logging solution, Geobank Mobile, with the goal of allowing geological field data to be more confidently collected and manipulated. The software, according to the company, is designed to ensure that data are captured accurately with real-time validation and rich data input controls that minimize errors at point of entry.

Geobank Mobile offers customiz-able calculated fields, built-in data approval and transfer mechanisms. It also seamlessly integrates with Geobank, MICROMINE’s data management solution, and can interface with all standard format databases. The software captures, vali-dates, stores and manages data from a variety of sources.

Geobank Mobile is accessible to clients located on-site, where it is supported on both touch-screen and standard keyboard devices. Additionally, it supports all NMEA standard GPS data, with provisions to sup-port additional devices in the future.

MICROMINE also recently reported that it developed a data connection between its Geobank software and portable geochemi-cal analyzer XRF machines. This function-ality allows MICROMINE clients to gain a rapid interpretation of a mineral’s properties while in the field.

Steve Bastick, Geobank operations man-ager, said that, “Information generated by the XRF machine can be seamlessly com-municated to Geobank, which provides the ideal tool to manage and make sense of the vast quantity of data generated. Geobank brings all the benefits of laboratory-style QAQC to the XRF machine, and allows users to maximize their investment in the XRF.”

Olympus, manufacturers of the Innov-X Delta XRF machines, and MICROMINE have collaboratively developed a “Geo-bank Export Template” specific to Innov-X Delta XRF machines. The template simpli-fies the configuration process. Users don’t have to configure their own exports and imports, saving a considerable amount of time and effort.

Programs for Productive Planning
As this issue went to press, MICROMINE was preparing for the launch of Micromine 2013, the latest version of its namesake exploration and mine design solution. Micromine 2013, due for release in May 2013, is the 14th version of the soft-ware application. The first version of Micromine—a modular package which allows for the capture, management and interpretation of critical mining and explo-ration data—was released to the market in 1986.

New features offered by Micromine 2013 focus strongly on modeling with the introduction of modules for implicit mod-eling and stratigraphic modeling, along with rotated block models and enhanced seam block models.

Daria Lvova, Micromine product man-ager, explained: “[Micromine 2013] is Microsoft Windows compatible and has recently received Microsoft Windows 8 compatibility. This highly regarded certifi-cation means clients can upgrade from Windows 7 with the confidence that Micromine will not require any compatibil-ity configuration and will work correctly on Windows 8.

“Micromine 2013 contains a variety of new user benefits and improved, intuitive functionality associated with resource esti-mation and modeling, pit optimization, annotation layers and scripting, as well as new CAD tools,” Lvova said. “These new features have been designed to further improve operational efficiencies and ease-of-use, and are highly relevant to exploration companies.”

Micromine 2013 supports rotated block models, which are models with axes that are not parallel to the coordinate sys-tem. One, two and three dimension rota-tions are supported.

Orientating the block to match the ore-body means they are a better fit with reali-ty, according to the company, producing a small model and saving processing time and disk space. It is also claimed to make more geological sense and is closely aligned with modern reporting requirements to con-firm continuity of grade and geology.

Due to increasingly complex mining processes and diverse user needs, a more sophisticated automation tool has been introduced within Micromine 2013—the Python programming language. Python, according to Micromine, was designed for teaching and is one of the easiest programming languages to learn, with com-prehensive mathematical tools.

Through Python, users can create their own solution, developing tools specific to their needs and running their own Python programs on top of Micromine. MICRO-MINE says Python is supported by many third-party packages and libraries, providing geospatial, statistical, graphic and user interface design tools, among others.

In addition, Micromine 2013 incorpo-rates Seam Block Models (SBM) along with the associated seam modeling workflow. Seam modeling tools simplify the creation of SBMs, including splits, plies, overbur-den and interburden, even in stratigraphically complex areas.

Micromine said its stratigraphy display helps validate and visualize even the most complex seam hierarchy. Micromine’s stratigraphic modeling tools honor the orig-inal data, with smart tools that handle seam pinching and missing holes, produc-ing a geologically correct model.

Micromine 2013 includes simple tools for generating surfaces and solids. Using these tools it is easy to create 3-D models without needing a deep understanding of geostatistics and interpolation. These mod-els can then be used on their own as visu-alization tools, or as templates for a tradi-tional interpretation.

The latest version also incorporates new features and improved functionality related to Vizex, Micromine’s 3-D display function-ality that allows users to interactively dis-play, query and edit multiple data layers.

Micromine 2013 will include seam corre-lation, annotation layers, seismic SEG-Y, drillhole solid, color/hatch/symbol sets, line styles and stereo 3-D.

Micromine 2013 supports rotated block models, which are models with axes that are not parallel to the coordinate
system. One, two and three dimension rotations are possible.

Implicit Confidence in Computing
Mintec unveiled several new features in the latest version (7.8) of its MineSight soft-ware platform, including implicit modeling technology. The company said its Implicit Modeler is unique as part of a general mine planning software package, allowing geolo-gists to rapidly build models and grade shells directly from drillholes.

Also new is MineSight Reserve, which is claimed to consolidate the power of MineSight’s previous specialized reserve engines. Easier to use and with superior reporting capability, MineSight Reserve improves on the former engines with several enhancements. These include a completely integrated reserve calculation and reporting engine. The Unified Reserves Engine (URE) can be leveraged as a reserve calculation tool for scheduling tools throughout MineSight.

URE supports 3-D block modeling and stratigraphic models, as well as greatly improving the ability to classify reserves. Other features include: multiple grouping fields for reporting; dynamic material clas-sification; calculated fields, which allow creation of calculated grade items on-the-fly; an easier-to-use interface; built-in reserve calculation auditing functions; and direct export of reports to Microsoft Excel, CSV, PDF and several other formats.

Customers using MineSight’s latest Haulage software now can apply the report-ing and charting functionality of ARC, MineSight’s Advanced Reporting and Charting tool. Included in the recent release of MineSight Haulage V.4, ARC offers a wide range of reporting and chart-ing options, including pivot reports, detailed reports, pre-defined templates and custom templates.

MineSight 3-D (MS3D) Version 7.8 inte-grates with Autodesk’s RealDWG toolkit, enabling improved sharing of data between AutoCAD and MS3D. The release updates the software’s DXF import/export to the latest standard and adds full DWG import/export capability. The inclusion of DWG support means convenience for clients exchanging large projects between AutoCAD and MS3D. Mintec said DWG, a native, binary format, is more efficient than the open, ASCII DXF for-mat. DWG yields files that are several times smaller than DXF formatted data.

Mintec’s newest version of MineSight Strategic Planner (V.3.6), also includes ARC reporting and adds improved input and vali-dation for entry of shovels, trucks and desti-nations and lifts. According to the company, MSSP offers the level of detail demanded by the mining industry for full feasibility stud-ies of new and existing mines. It ensures that the long-term life-of-mine plan can be used effectively by short and medium-term mine planners as guidelines for their work.

MSSP analyzes bench pushback re-serves, material destinations and haulage parameters to provide a feasible life of mine schedule that maximizes net present value. It considers all operating constraints while meeting or exceeding project-specif-ic objectives, period production goals and quality targets.

New Avenues for Evaluation
GEOVIA, formerly known as Gemcom Software prior to acquisition in 2012 by Dassault Systèmes, released the latest ver-sion (6.5) of the GEMS geology and mine planning software application. The new ver-sion, said the company, provides tools that enable easier drillhole design, and then allow users to rapidly produce and evaluate solids from the drillhole information in ways that were not previously possible, freeing more time for evaluation and analysis.

A new Dynamic Shells module allows geologists to model geologic data for visu-alization of grade data. Fully integrated with GEMS, this tool is designed to save time when initially evaluating deposits and can assist in generating surfaces and solids in moments as opposed to hours. The mod-ule interactively creates grade shells from drillholes and sample information. Geolo-gists can select data points directly from GEMS and immediately create implicitly modeled isosurfaces, and analyze several different models simultaneously based on different interpolation parameters.

MineSight is Mintec’s comprehensive modeling and mine planning software platform, offering integrated
solutions for exploration, modeling, design, scheduling, and production.

The company noted that although this method does not replace traditional solids and block modeling, it is a technique that can provide mining operations with a faster and more flexible analysis capability for an ore deposit.

Other features offered by the new ver-sion include:

• A new drillhole design tool that assists with designing and storing new drillholes for exploration or resource extension pro-jects, allowing geologists to create and edit new planned drillholes graphically.

• Solids validation and error correction that has undergone a dramatic change, and new solids repair functionality that re-duces solids validation time from days to minutes.

• A solids autocorrect feature that locates and fills invalid triangles, and removes and fills the resultant hole(s) with the ability to expand the selection to neighboring tri-angles to fix more complex error groups.

• TIN conditioning, triangle thinning, selec-tion and manual repair functions are also collated into the new tool for ease of use.

Rapid Data Translation
RPM (RungePincockMinarco) showcased new and upgraded products at the 2013 SME Annual Meeting & Exhibit held in Denver, Colorado, USA, in February. RPM said its new Block Agg translates geology into mining as soon as new information is uncovered, allowing sites to rapidly move from geological models to scheduling options and production forecasts; while Haulnet, part of RPM’s TALPAC mining productivity simulator portfolio, is used to identify the most advantageous haulage routes. It enables users to visualize avail-able haulage paths and choose the most cost-effective routes by interpreting road geometry from mine designs, then quickly filter thousands of data points into haul roads and profiles. The program’s graphics features realistically simulate the produc-tivity of haul truck routes at different phases of mine life, in 3-D.

In combination with the features of the Advanced Destination Scheduler in XPAC, its mine scheduling software, RPM said Haulnet allows users to accurately report truck hours for every period by source, material and destination; analyze available haulage options each time a new destina-tion is selected; ensure the schedule does not exceed the truck hours available for each period; and model haulage options in a rigorous, practical manner.

RPM also announced that the latest release of TALPAC (10.2) has had its equipment database of trucks, loaders, scrapers and underground equipment updated to include the latest equipment introduced to the market at MINExpo 2012. The update includes Caterpillar’s Unit Rig MT4400D AC and Cat 777G haul trucks, Komatsu’s 750E (AC) truck and Hitachi’s EH 5000AC-3 truck. The update also includes newly introduced or upgrad-ed equipment from many other manufac-turers including Liebherr, Bell, Volvo, BelAZ and P&H.

Alun Philips, RPM’s product manag-er–simulation, said, “We’re proud that with this new release, TALPAC has evolved to include a vast database of more than 500 trucks and 400 loaders, allowing virtually any truck and loader combination to be simulated and evaluated.”

Dedicated to Coal
RPM introduced Underground Coal, a ded-icated product for underground coal mining, at Mining Indaba in South Africa ear-lier this year. RPM’s Regional General Manager–EMEA, Mike Evans, explained that many of the company’s clients are dependent on “niche” technical skills. “With a skills shortage continuing to affect the industry, we’ve addressed these con-cerns by opening up mine planning to a wider audience,” Evans said.

RPM’s coal software, Evans said, reduces the need to learn scripting, allow-ing for more high-speed planning. “By implementing Underground Coal, we remove the risk of loss of human capital from our clients’ business,” he said.

The RPM product enters the market against GEOVIA/Gemcom’s coal solution, which to date has been the only integrated, end-to-end geology and mine planning solution designed specifically for coal, according to Robert Selzler, Gemcom’s vice president of marketing. Gemcom released the latest version of Minex (6.1.1) in late 2011, which built on existing underground capabilities to offer a complete under-ground coal scheduling and design solu-tion. It has since been renamed Under-ground Engineering.

Further strengthening MICROMINE’s exploration offerings is Coal Measure, a software solution specific to the coal sector that enables modeling of coal projects to be executed quickly due to seamless processes, from stratigraphic hierarchy compilation through to gridding and seam block model generation.

A new Dynamic Shells module in the latest version of GEOVIA's GEMS software allows geologists to model geologic data
for visualization of grade data, enabling staff to save time when initially evaluating deposits.

Advances in Asset Management
Mining companies interested in reducing maintenance costs and improving plant reli-ability may accomplish those goals through a solution released in January from enter-prise resource planning (ERP) software provider Syspro and enterprise asset man-agement (EAM) software provider Mainpac.

The combined offering is claimed to be unique in the industry, enabling mine oper-ators to take immediate advantage of the lat-est EAM and ERP technology, according to Mainpac Executive Chairman James Kirk.

“Mining is an asset-intensive business and maintenance can account for any-where between 30% and 50% of a mine site’s overall costs. This makes it a key area in which companies can gain efficiencies and a competitive advantage,” Kirk said.

“As well as being asset intensive, mining is also a heavily regulated industry. Equipment is frequently audited to make sure the correct parts are in place and the equipment is well maintained. Maintenance managers must be able to provide accurate records for compliance and auditing purpos-es. This process becomes much faster and less labor intensive with the use of an effec-tive…EAM system.”

According to Mainpac, a recent Aberdeen Group report suggests that a mine’s performance is directly affected by the management of its assets. The report said performance can be characterized by overall equipment effectiveness, unsched-uled asset downtime, maintenance costs and return on assets.

“Many ERP providers offer a solution that includes asset management capabili-ties, but the asset management compo-nent is usually an afterthought and is often inadequate to meet the requirements of asset intensive businesses. The initial out-lay and ongoing costs of these ‘all-in-one’ solutions can be very high, especially when the purchased solution is inadequate, and the company must return to market to find an asset management solution that meets their needs,” Kirk said.

“By partnering with Syspro, we’ve creat-ed a ‘best of both worlds’ solution. With a comprehensive ERP system and a special-ized EAM system working together in a pre-integrated solution, mining companies will start seeing benefits almost immediately.”

The implementation process is easier and faster, according to the developers— and is also scalable, so users can start small and expand their use of the system across multiple sites or divisions as needed.

According to Mainpac, substantial sav-ings and operational efficiencies are achieved via the capability of the integrated solution to track and manage asset avail-ability and performance and apply mainte-nance strategies according to an asset’s crit-icality to the business, according to Kirk.

“The integrated system lets you see everything down to the finest detail so you can make smarter decisions about mainte-nance, faster,” he said.

“You can balance maintenance costs against replacement costs, for example. With a best of breed asset management system in place you can identify warranty opportunities, reduce unplanned downtime and reduce the number of spare parts and consumables held across multiple sites.”

Mainpac’s software, Mainpac 2011, was developed in consultation with research partners such as the Cooperative Research Center for Infrastructure and Engineering Asset Management (CIEAM). It enables customers to take incremental steps toward best practices, making it ideal for organizations that are still exploring the concept of predictive maintenance.

“Reliability tools within Mainpac 2011, like its Criticality Matrix and Maintenance Strategy Decision Tree, enable customers to quickly identify key assets and develop a maintenance strategy based on practical considerations. It’s easy to use with mini-mal keystrokes, so it won’t take long for users to be up and running with the solu-tion,” Kirk said.

“As well as integrating easily with Syspro’s ERP system, Mainpac 2011 also readily integrates with operational and SCADA systems for greater visibility and automation across the business.”

Shaun Butler, Syspro’s general manag-er–Asia Pacific, said the joint offering will give customers control over key assets and enterprise wide business processes in one fast implementation.

“Both Mainpac and Syspro have had a single solution focus for more than 30 years and both have invested heavily in ongoing development and continuous improvement. This partnership now enables Syspro ERP users to gain interactive dashboards; work-flow capability across an entire enterprise; accessibility from anywhere and anyhow; flexibility in deployment; total scalability; and a complete out of the box solution that works seamlessly across all areas of the business without the need for any cus-tomized integration,” Butler said.

In a slightly different vein, Dingo Software, developers of the popular Trakka software tool for in asset-intensive indus-tries, announced that it planned to release a new Condition Intelligence Module in April 2013. The new module, said Dingo, enables streamlined and automatic diag-nostics of asset condition through the use of rules-based analysis. The goal of Condition Intelligence is to proactively identify issues with components and assets and then provide the client with recom-mendations and action plans to correct the problems in an appropriate time frame.

At the core of the Condition Intelli-gence module is a forward-chaining rules engine which processes and reacts to incoming data and event patterns. When triggered, these rules initiate workflow recommendations, or series of maintenance tasks designed to address an abnormal equipment condition. These rules integrate with the workflow management structure within Trakka, and are applicable to any time-series data across multiple industries. Main-tenance or other action recommenda-tions are sent to the client via email and are based on the rules as developed by the client and Dingo.

Dingo offers an Expert Analysis option to the rules-based solution, in which Dingo experts provide a daily review and analysis of component and asset data. Based on the data and their analysis, Dingo provides to the client prioritized maintenance actions either via email or, in emergency situations, by telephone. Along with the recommendations, Dingo will pro-vide unique troubleshooting guides exclu-sive to the type and model of equipment being analyzed.

Dealing with Documents in the ‘Big Data’ Era
Aconex, provider of project collaboration solutions for the mining and other indus-tries, announced its selection by Alderon Iron Ore Corp. for use at Alderon’s Kamistiatusset (Kami) iron ore project in western Labrador. Alderon, a Canada-based iron ore development company, chose the Aconex platform to manage the huge volume of documents shared among the geographically dispersed organizations involved in the multiparty project.

“Aconex is helping us keep our project on track,” said Bernard Potvin, executive vice president of project delivery at Alderon. “It’s crucial that all of our global teams, from China to St. John’s, have real-time access to current documentation around the clock. The resulting increase in productivity—for administration, informa-tion management and personnel tracking and reporting—has shortened document turnaround time among team members, directly improving our bottom line.”

Prior to Aconex, Alderon had not deployed a third-party collaboration solu-tion to manage the hundreds of thousands of documents involved in Kami, with 150-plus document types ranging from AutoCad drawings and 3-D models to contracts and procurement materials. Previously, corre-spondence and collaboration among partic-ipating companies had been conducted by email, on various internal servers and over additional channels.

Aconex said Alderon should now be able to more efficiently manage correspondence, documents and workflows after implementa-tion of its solution. An important benefit, according to Aconex, is ease of deployment and local support, which enabled the project team to become fully operational on the Aconex platform in a matter of weeks from the day of implementation.

“In the age of Big Data and multiparty collaboration, there’s an increasingly massive amount of information being cre-ated, and companies are forced to deal with the deluge or be left behind.” said Leigh Jasper, CEO of Aconex. “We’ve wit-nessed first-hand how our clients have overcome that challenge to streamline their processes and realize major cost savings and productivity gains, and ulti-mately improved profitability.”

Aconex said its suite of solutions enables project managers to reduce the cost and risk inherent in capital projects of all sizes and improve efficiency, productivity and accountability for all project participants. Aconex claims 280,000 users among its customer base, which includes large mining companies, nine of the world’s top 10 engineering procurement and construction (EPC) firms, 23 of the 25 leading global design firms, and nearly all Fortune 500 construction and engineering firms.

Taking another approach to solve a pro-ject information management problem, Anglo American selected Intergraph’s SmartPlant Foundation to support the information handover process for its Los Bronces mine development project.

Gerhard Sallinger, president of Inter-graph Process, Power & Marine, said, “SmartPlant Foundation provides Anglo American the technology and capabilities of the industry-standard solution for informa-tion management, used by engineering, pro-curement and construction companies and owner operators globally. The implementa-tion of SmartPlant Foundation at Los Bronces Development Project gives Anglo American fast, easy and intuitive access to engineering documentation, allowing it to execute projects and operate safer while increasing quality and productivity.”

Intergraph, a division of Hexagon, said SmartPlant Foundation has the broadest solution footprint in the industry with capa-bilities that span the entire project life cycle, ranging from simple document manage-ment to configuration management. Its forte is the ability to manage massively interrelat-ed, interdependent and rapidly evolving data that is the backbone of SmartPlant Enterprise, Intergraph’s multi-discipline integrated engineering suite, as well as being the platform for integrated applica-tions such as SmartPlant Construction and SmartPlant Enterprise for Owner Operators.

Tahoe Resources turned to EcoSys’ project control software to manage the many forms of documentation required for construction
—such as for the water treatment storage ponds shown here—and startup of its Escobal project in Guatemala.

Getting a Grip on Cost Management
EcoSys, a Denver, Colorado-based develop-er of project controls software, said it has implemented enterprise solutions for more than 250 private and public organizations, and recently assisted Tahoe Resources in a program to help the junior silver explo-ration and development company gain con-trol of its project cost management.

Tahoe’s Escobal project—its first pro-ducing mine—is located in southeast Guatemala and offers an estimated life of 18 years at a capital cost of more than $325 million. Construction is under way and production is expected in late 2013. Given large capital expenses before the mine starts producing and a finite lifespan, the effective control of costs is imperative to the overall profitability of the project.

Consequently, Tahoe sought a streamlined system for cost management on this pro-ject which would then serve as the cost con-trols foundation for future mining projects. Starting from scratch, Tahoe required a system to support cost control best prac-tices “out of the box,” but with the flexi-bility to meet its specific and unique requirements. They wanted a single system that could support budgeting, change management, commitments tracking, rec-onciliation of actuals, performance meas-urement, forecasting, as well as provide an integrated reporting solution.

Tahoe also would need a method to aggregate its own internal commitments and transactions with those initiated externally by its engineering, procurement, construc-tion and management consultant. And, as an international company, Tahoe required a system that could easily support the multiple currencies it regularly uses in its operations.

In conjunction with global construction consultants Turner & Townsend, Tahoe selected EcoSys EPC (Enterprise Planning & Controls) as its project cost management solution for Escobal, which also provided the scalability to grow for future projects.

Tahoe will use the EcoSys system to:

• Function as a central repository to aggre-gate data for project controls reporting;

• Exchange budget and actuals data with Tahoe’s Microsoft Dynamics accounting system;

• Provide detailed budget tracking includ-ing original and current budgets on annual and Life Total bases;

• Implement a budget change management process with an auditable workflow;

• Manage all commitments within EPC and reconcile against actual costs;

• Model forecasts based upon multiple approaches including direct, time-phased estimates or earned value methodology;

• Allow for planning, forecasting and recording actuals in multiple currencies, as well as adjusting for exchange fluctu-ations and converting foreign currencies into the reporting currency; and

• Provide comprehensive reporting capabili-ties (e.g. monthly cost performance, change order logs, 12-month rolling cash flow fore-cast, earned value by area) and allow end-users to create new reports as needed.

EcoSys notes that Tahoe’s now-scalable cost controls system is able to support multi-ple projects and portfolio level analysis. It provides visibility into project performance with easy drill-down into details to isolate variances, allowing for rapid corrective action. Its automated report generation capability reduces labor and potential errors associated with manual collating and building of reports.

Implementation of EcoSys EPC, said the company, has provided Tahoe Resources with a full-featured cost controls software solution that supports its need for budgeting and forecasting, change management, com-mitments tracking, reconciliation of actuals, performance measurement including earned value, and reporting. As a result, the organ-ization has enhanced its ability to proactive-ly address project change and variances.