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APCOM 2021 Minerals Industry 4.0

Date	30 August 2021
-	01 September 2021
Location	Online Event
Resources	APCOM 2021 Abstracts Received 06072021.pdf APCOM Announcement 08072021.pdf APCOM Final Programme 24082021.pdf APCOM Sponsorship Online Conference 2021. 08072021pdf.pdf

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Introduction

INTRODUCTION

APCOM (Applications of Computers and Operations Research in the Minerals Industries) is a series of well established, high-quality international scientific conferences which was started in the early 1960s with the aim
of sharing technological advances by engineers and computer scientists in all fields relevant to the mining industry.

Background

BACKGROUND

The APCOM events have evolved to become a major driver of innovation in the minerals industry, and over the years, many breakthrough innovations, such as geostatistics and mining process optimisation, have been initially discussed at or originated from the APCOM conferences. One of the success factors of APCOM is the intensive, high-quality dialogue that it promotes between industry and academia. Thanks to the personal commitments of APCOM’s loyal participants and supporters, the symposia continue to be a thriving success.

The APCOM 2021 Conference, the 40th in the series, will be held online from 29 August – 1 September 2021.

Who Should Attend

WHO SHOULD ATTEND

APCOM will be of particular interest to planning, research and operations personnel in industry and government and to managers, engineers, and computer research scientists.

Conference themes:

EXPLORATION

Remote sensing applications
Automated data acquisition
Geotechnical and geophysical exploration
Drilling investment decisions

EMERGING TECHNOLOGIES

Artificial neural network
Automation and robotics
Data analytics
Digital mining systems
Digital twins

ENVIRONMENTAL ISSUES

Tailings management
Rehabilitation/reclamation
Mine closure
Hazardous pollution control
Environmental management
Impact assessment
Water management

OREBODY MODELLING AND ESTIMATION

Orebody modelling techniques
Orebody modelling techniques
Estimation techniques
Geostatistics
Computer visualisation
Simulation
Resource and reserve classification

MINE PLANNING AND DESIGN

Mine design
Strategic, long-term and short-term planning
Production scheduling
Stochastic mine planning and optimisation

MINE OPERATIONS

SHE Management
Ground control/rock engineering
Grade control
Ventilation
Blasting design and control
Mining equipment productivity
Mineral resource management
Validation and reconciliation
Mine monitoring and control
Access control
Supply chain management
Project management

MINERAL PROCESSING AND PLANT OPERATIONS

Sampling and analysts
Plant and process modelling and design
Automation
Process control
Real-time data acquisition and application

INVESTMENT PLANNING AND PROJECT EVALUATION

Cost estimation and projections
Feasibility analysis
Risk assessment
Capital projects
Taxation implications

INDUSTRYWIDE PROJECTIONS

Economic modelling of mineral sectors
Supply, demand and price studies
Regional and national environmental planning
National and international planning for minerals
Information systems
Sustainable development
Health and Safety projections
Sustainable development

Keynote Speakers

KEYNOTE SPEAKERS

Andrew Lane

Company: Deloitte
Designation: Africa Energy and Resources Leader, Deloitte Africa

Andrew is a senior partner at Deloitte Africa, where he leads the Energy and Resources practice in Africa, leads the Monitor Deloitte corporate and business unit strategy capability and leads the CEO programme at the Deloitte Executive Institute.
Andrews professional career spans 33 years – 14 in Industry, mainly in general management in industrial companies; and 19 in strategy and operational consulting
Andrew joined Deloitte as a Director following Deloitte’s acquisition of Monitor. He had joined Monitor as a partner, after being a partner and founding member of North Road Consulting
Andrew has led strategy, operational improvement, organization redesign and implementation projects in several industries. Andrew has specific expertise in energy, resources, aviation, logistics and manufacturing.
His consulting experience spans operational turnarounds, performance improvement, and strategy development for private, listed and parastatal companies. His strategy expertise spans portfolio strategy, corporate and business unit strategy, growth strategy, and sustainability strategy.
Prior to founding North Road Consulting, Andrew enjoyed a successful career at Bain & Company in Johannesburg and London. During this time he led client assignments in various industries, including mining, car rental, utilities, revenue collection, general industry and media.

Winfred Assibey-Bonsu

Company: Gold Fields Corporate Office, Perth
Designation: Group Geostatistician and Evaluator

Winfred Assibey-Bonsu is the Group Head Geostatistician and Evaluator, Corporate Technical Services at Gold Fields Corporate Office, West Perth, Australia, with PhD from University of Witwatersrand, Johannesburg; EDP, Wits Business School; MSc from University of Zambia; Post-Graduate Diploma and BSc (Hons) from the UST School of Mines (now UMaT), Ghana. Winfred’s experience spanning over 30 years in the mining industry includes mineral resource assets assessment for mining companies as well as new business associated work including prospects in South Africa, Australia, South America, Zaire, Ghana, Ivory Coast, Philippines, Ethiopia, Tanzania, Cuba, Dominican Republic, Russia, Finland, Romania, Papua New Guinea. Winfred is currently the Chairman of the International APCOM Council.

Themba Moyeni Mkhwanazi

Company: Kumba Iron Ore
Designation: Chief Executive Officer

Themba is the CEO of Kumba Iron Ore and a member of the Group Management Committee (GMC) at Anglo American. Prior to joining Kumba, he held the position of CEO of Anglo American’s coal business in South Africa from May 2014 to 1 September 2016. He has extensive experience in the resources industry, including 20 years in his native South Africa, as well as in the USA and Australia.

Themba was a Managing Director of Huntsman Tioxide in South Africa until 2007 when he was appointed COO of Richards Bay Minerals, a joint venture between Rio Tinto and BHP Billiton.
In 2011, Themba was seconded to Rio Tinto’s Australian coal business, before taking up the role of Regional General Manager for the Americas in 2012.

Leonardo Machado

Company: Visagio Consulting
Designation: Managing Partner

Leonardo has over 17 years of experience. He is one of the co-founders and managing partners of Visagio Consulting. Has developed over 120 projects in management engineering, mainly focused on operations and supply chain management, business process reengineering and organizational design.

Has been working for industries such as Mining, Manufacturing, Oil & Gas, Logistics and Transportation, Retail, Tobacco, Steel, Banking, Chemical, Telecommunications and Services, with experience in projects in Australia, Bolivia, Brazil, Canada, Turkey, United States and New Caledonia. Has extensive experience working in the mining indsutry.

He holds a B.Sc. in Industrial Engineering from UFRJ (Brazil).

The main areas of expertise are: Logistics and Supply Chain Management, Statistical Forecasting, Simulation and Optimization.

He is the co-author of the book ”Optimising the Supply Chain”. He was the lead developer of the ARRISCA Simulation Tool – Spreadsheet Simulation Add-in. Leonardo Machado is fluent in English, Portuguese and, to a lesser extent, Spanish.

Erkan Topal

Company: Curtin University
Designation: Professor
Qualifications: PhD

Prof Erkan Topal is a mining engineer with a Master of Science Degree (MSc) in Mineral Economics, MSc and PhD. Degree in Mining Engineering from Colorado School of Mines in U.S.

He has worked in several different countries on different projects and positions including U.S, Canada, Sweden, Turkey, Kazakhstan and Australia. He has recently being seconded to Nazarbayev University, Kazakhstan as a founding dean where he has established a new School named School of Mining and Geosciences. He has also previously served for five years as Head of Mining Engineering Department at the WA School of Mines, Curtin University.

His main research interests are in mine planning and optimization, mineral and energy economics. He has been a principal investigator on numerous research projects. He is a world leading expert in the field of mine planning and optimization. Some of his internationally recognized research includes underground mine scheduling with stope boundary optimization, mine waste dump design with pit optimisation, Application of the Real Options in Engineering Design and Decision Making. Prof Topal’s work on optimum waste dump planning was the winner of the science and engineering prize at the 2015 Curtin Commercial Innovation Awards.

He has recently organized and chaired the “28th International Symposium on Mine Planning and Equipment Selection - MPES 2019” conference in Perth and conference proceedings was published by Springer. He is in the editorial board of five scientific journals in the area of mining including editor-in-chief role for the International Journal of Mining, Reclamation and Environment Journal as well as being in the international advisory board of Journal of the Southern African Institute of Mining and Metalurgy (SAIMM) and has published well over 100 papers in reputed journals and refereed conference proceedings.

Sebnem Duzgun

Company: Colorado School of Mines
Designation: Golden, CO, USA

Dr. H. Şebnem Düzgün is a Professor and Fred Banfield Distinguished Endowed Chair of the Mining Engineering Department with joint appointment in the department of Computer Science at the Colorado School of Mines. She has an international reputation for a broad range of topics including probabilistic modelling of engineered and natural rock slopes and quantitative risk assessment, analysis and management of risks associated with geotechnical hazards and tailing dam failures, mine environmental monitoring using remote sensing, systems safety, robotics, big data and AI in the mining life cycle, virtual/augmented/mixed reality (VR/AR/MR) and serious gaming for technical training and collaborative decision making, sustainable mining practices. She conducted research at Massachusetts Institute of Technology as NATO Scholar between 1998 and 1999. She was a member of the Norwegian Geotechnical Institute and International Centre for Geohazards between 2004 and 2005. She is the recipient of the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation`s experienced researcher fellowship. During her fellowship between 2015 and 2016, she researched at the Geophysical Institute at Karlsruhe Institute of Technology in Germany. She is on the Editorial Board of various scientific journals, namely Landslides, Journal of Sustainable Mining; Sustainability: Computers and Geosciences; International Journal of Emergency Management; Georisk Journal; Energy Exploration and Exploitation. She is a member of SME, ARMA, ISRM, IEEE, ASCE, ISPRS and USSD. She authored four books and published over 250 papers. She is the principal author of the book entitled Remote Sensing of the Mine Environment. She has recently included in UK`s 100 Global Inspirational Women in Mining 2020 Edition and appointed as 100 Resilience Fellows of 4TU-Federation`s Resilience Engineering Program. She was the founder and former CEO of the software company, Kuzgun Informatics, contributor of the three ceramic art exhibitions, the drummer of a local band, and is the mother of two sons.

Sibongile (“Bongi”) Ntsoelengoe

Company: CSIR

Bongi has had over 15 years’ experience in the mining industry having worked in iron ore and base metal commodities. Her career started after graduating from the University of the Witwatersrand with a BSc (Eng) in Metallurgy and Material Engineering. Bongi holds a Master of Business Administration from GIBS, University of Pretoria and BSc (Eng) Honours (Metallurgical Engineering), University of Pretoria. She also has a Certificate in Advanced Management Programme Certificate, University of Navarra, IESE Business School. She has held various positions in the mining industry, which have given her experience in the processing of minerals, delivering capital projects, technology research, digital road mapping and driving the modernisation across the mining value chain. Bongi also served as a member of the innovation steering committee at the Minerals Council of South Africa, and she is a Council Member for the South African Institute of Mining and Metallurgy (SAIMM). As Manager of Technology at Kumba Iron Ore, she was responsible for leading Kumba’s digital technology strategy and innovation roadmap which has seen the company roll out some significant technologies such as a fully autonomous drilling fleet at Kolomela mine, advanced process control for plant operations, autonomous braking system for haul trucks, and other applications. She has been recognised as a leader in the field of mine modernisation, which led to her being a panellist at several conferences. Bongi was appointed Cluster Executive Manager for Mining at the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) in April 2020. In her current role she continues to provide strategic direction and leadership on the application of 4IR technologies in mining including the development of relevant capabilities to support the revitalisation and growth of the mining industry, in line with the CSIR’s industrialisation strategy.

International APCOM Council

INTERNATIONAL APCOM COUNCIL

Dr Sukumar Bandopadhyay - Society for Mining, Metallurgy and Exploration, Inc., USA
Dr Ernest Baafi - Australasian Institute of Mining and Metallurgy, Australia
Prof Roussos Dimitrakopoulos - McGill University, Canada
Dr Winfred Assibey-Bonsu - Council Chair, The South African Institute of Mining and Metallurgy, South Africa
Dr Sean Dessureault - Mosaic
Dr Kadri Dagdelen - Colorado School of Mines, USA
Dr Antonio Nieto - Goldfields, USA
Dr. Andrej Sublj - Institute of Mining, Geotechnology and Environment, Solvania
Dr Nelson Morales - University of Chile, Chile
Dr Wang Yuehan - China University of Technology, Beijing, China
Dr Christoph Mueller- MobileTronics GmbH
Dr Cuthbert Musingwini - University of Witwatersrand, South Africa
Dr Joao Felipe - Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil
Dr Julian Ortiz - Queen's University, Canada
Dr Andrea Brickey - South Dakota School of Mines & Technology, USA

Organising Committee

ORGANISING COMMITTEE

Cuthbert Musingwini - University of the Witwatersrand, South Africa
Gary Lane - Vuuma Collaborations, South Africa
Christina Dohm - University of the Witwatersrand, South Africa
Theunis Otto - Anglo American, South Africa
Hennie Grobler - University of Johannesburg, South Africa
Rudrajit Mitra - RWTH Aachen University, Germany
Antonio Nieto - University of the Witwatersrand, South Africa
Mike Woodhall - MineRP, South Africa
Paseka Leeuw - University of the Witwatersrand, South Africa
Isaac Mabala - University of the Witwatersrand, South Africa
Johnny van den Berg - MineRP
Antony Mello - Vuuma Collaborations, South Africa
David Rose - University of the Witwatersrand, South Africa
Luan Mai - Visagio, Australia
Sezer Uludag - University of Pretoria

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APCOM 2021 Minerals Industry 4.0

Introduction

INTRODUCTION

Background

BACKGROUND

Who Should Attend

WHO SHOULD ATTEND

Important Dates

IMPORTANT DATES

Keynote Speakers

KEYNOTE SPEAKERS

Andrew Lane

Winfred Assibey-Bonsu

Themba Moyeni Mkhwanazi

Leonardo Machado

Erkan Topal

Sebnem Duzgun

Sibongile (“Bongi”) Ntsoelengoe

Submissions

SUBMISSIONS

International APCOM Council

INTERNATIONAL APCOM COUNCIL

Organising Committee

ORGANISING COMMITTEE

Contact

CONTACT