The amount of data generated by modern mines is enormous. While there can be big value contained in it all, managing and analysing it in the service of the entire operation is a difficult task. A tool to make that possible was the animating idea for Eclipse Mining Technologies’ SourceOne platform, launched in February. 

It is a mining-specific, vendor-agnostic data hub designed to open up the information contained within applications across operations – scheduling, fleet management, grade control and fragmentation – and make it accessible to the operators. 

“Current offerings in the market consist mostly of isolated point solutions from a variety of providers, platforms that integrate data only from their own product line, or large, monolithic and inflexible systems, with tools that don’t necessarily talk to each other,” said Eclipse chairman Fred Banfield. 

The platform allows users to consult original data and provides a complete audit trail so users can see how and when data has changed. It was also designed to allow work done without an Internet connection to be captured and pulled into the system once reconnected. It also smooths the adoption of artificial intelligence. 

“The miners own all the data and it should be available to them,” said Eclipse Mining’s CEO Susan Wick. “They should have access to it to do the analysis they need to do.” 

Wick, along with Eclipse Mining chairman Fred Banfield, have a deep background in mining software. Banfield, the co-founder of Mintec and Wick its COO, began this latest venture after Mintec and its popular modelling and planning software MineSight were acquired by Hexagon Mining in 2014.