8 Jan - March 2021 ARMED WITH THE RIGHT TOOLS, MINING AND METALS PROJECTS HAVE SUCCESSFUL OUTCOMESBy Randy Heffernan, VP, Palisade CorpHigh risk and high reward scenarios are inherent to the metals and mining industry. Projects are typically on a multi-billion-dollar scale, with staged layers of complexity that each brings their own challenges. How can executives and decision-makers in this field effectively manage the threats of failure and set-backs and make truly informed decisions? Often, decisions are made based on subjective experience and expert opinions. While these elements have value, taken alone they are insufficient for handling the challenges of modern mining: delays, budget overruns, and safety issues. Quantitative, systematic approaches to decision-making and risk management are necessary. Here are just a few tips on how such strategies can be used to improve management of mining and metals projects.Take New Projects on a Test Run with Simulation ModelsPilot projects in any industry are pricy, but metal refineries deal with particularly high costs. Take the example of Met-Mex Peñoles--the world's largest refiner of silver, and Mexico's largest refiner of gold. Met-Mex wanted to avoid high pilot project costs and high numbers of trial runs. Naturally, any pilot project testing innovations involving silver or gold are costly, as any precious metal that is lost or ruined in the process carries a high price with it. Thus, they developed a quantitative method for process optimization that would cut down on the need for multiple trial runs on the metals themselves.To do this, Met-Mex uses a Six Sigma Design of Experiments model in Microsoft Excel that incorporates Monte Carlo simulation to create simulated trial runs of new manufacturing processes. This allows engineers to simulate changes in process design and answer difficult questions without actually running expensive trials of the process. The company uses actual data from previous pilot projects as inputs to this mathematical model, along with precise specifications and tolerances of its manufacturing equipment, assorted physical operations, random processing errors, and cost analyses. Precise pieces of data IN MYOPINION
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