MassMin 2016 is only a week or so behind us, and like you, we are back to work and remembering the many fantastic people and opportunities we experienced at this event. While the memories are still fresh, we want to share our impressions of this great conference.

Thank you AusIMM

Most of all, we want to congratulate the organisers of MassMin 2016 for their excellent work, and thank the sponsors for their support. It was highly beneficial to attend the conference, and the people we have spoken to since the show all agree with us that it was one of the most professional, effective and enjoyable industry events they have been to in recent times.

Shedding some light into the dark world of caving

Every few years, when the caving community gathers during conferences, a wealth of opinions and experiences is shared during presentations and networking events. These interactions enable the industry to continually improve best practices in caving.

Several people noted that figuring out caving is like putting together a puzzle with a few important pieces still missing.  This conference has demonstrated that the number of missing pieces is getting smaller and the picture of the ‘caving puzzle’ is becoming clearer.

Collaboration leads to innovation

Elexon Mining is proud to be a part of this very active and enthusiastic community. We appreciate the collaboration with so many of you. Only through this partnership approach are we able to develop new technologies that improve vital insights into what is seen as a ‘blind’ mining method.

The development of the real-time cave flow monitoring system, Cave Tracker, was another important milestone on the industry’s journey to master cave mining. Thanks to these new monitoring technologies, the ability to plan and control caving has greatly improved.

Greater control over caving will lead to improved safety and higher performance. The benefits of these outcomes are far reaching; covering operators, engineers, site management, corporate management and investors.

Continued development and interaction

We look forward to continuing our contribution to the improvement of safety and performance in cave mining. We want to invite you to share your experience and opinions by interacting with us.

As a company focused on innovation that comes about through collaboration, we are interested in understanding how we can improve our collaboration with you and empower you in your work?

We welcome your input in the comments field below.

Elexon Mining is exhibiting at Massmin 2016. This once-every-four-years exhibition is the premier mass mining event. Our team will present a number of papers on the technologies we have developed, and our booth is set up to help attendees learn more about the benefits of our products.

It’s fantastic to see the growth in awareness of Smart Marker and Cave Tracker, and to also hear our collaboration partners include our products in their research papers.

The upcoming Cave Tracker paper to be delivered by Dylan Whiteman on Wednesday 11th May is generating a lot of excitement, especially as he has some ‘hot off the press’ data to share with the audience.

Read more about Massmin: http://www.massmin2016.com/

The highlight for mass mining specialists around the world is Massmin. This year’s event, which was held from June 10-14 in Canada, was no different, with a strong presence of caving specialists.

We heard from a range of speakers, including Alan Moss (Rio Tinto), who spoke about, “Back to the basics – The need to measure”. We were delighted that the presentation was in line with the core message of our own presentation held during the conference.

A growing number of presentations at the conference also contained references to the Smart Marker System, which is excellent news, as it reinforces the work we do.

Our discussions with specialists from research institutions, mining and consulting companies during Massmin have confirmed our approach – that we need to close the feedback loop in underground mining in order to improve mining performance by reducing dilution and ore loss.

Our goal is to achieve real improvements in ore grade.  A systematic way of achieving this goal is for mines to adopt a system of measuring their ore flow, analyzing the data, trying changes to the mining method and then measuring the result. Our meetings at Massmin have made us even more confident that real improvements will be found by repeating this process. A number of mines are now planning to use Smart Markers to implement this approach.

We are delighted to have met generations of intelligent, curious and experienced caving professionals, and look forward to working together with them and contributing our share to make caving a successful low-cost and low–risk mining method. The future of caving is bright.