Orica says new features on its BlastIQ solution are said to have been developed to bring additional capabilities and help customers reduce the overall cost of quarry and mine drill and blast operations, improve operational productivity and safety, and facilitate regulatory compliance.
Improvements to the BlastIQ user interface allows real-time access to the status of each blast through the centralised online BlastIQ Platform, enabling users to collate and collaborate on data from across the drill and blast process. Insights are easily interpreted from data gathered with new visualisation features, accelerating planning, analysis and auditing of blast data to satisfy regulatory requirements.
Multilingual support has also been added across the technology suite, now supporting Spanish, French Canadian, Russian and Portuguese, facilitating broader access and adoption of BlastIQ for more customers around the world.
BlastIQ Mobile technology now provides a wider set of loading conditions through the seamless integration of loading rules, increasing on-bench quality control management and productivity. Continuous loading rules can now be applied to blast holes in real-time, even in areas without bench wireless connectivity, creating efficiency and quality gains on-bench.
Accuracy and efficiency of explosives delivery is significantly enhanced through real-time synchronisation of blast hole data between Orica's Mobile Manufacturing Unit (MMU) and BlastIQ as changes occur in both design and actual loading data. Using this data, Orica’s smart, connected delivery systems load the correct explosive type and quantity according to the original design, adjusted based on blast hole condition measurements and the automated application of a defined set of loading rules managed by the drill and blast engineer.
The claimed industry-first, direct integration with the delivery control system automates process control thereby eliminating errors in manual product selection, process control and incorrect logging of loading actuals, as well as importantly reducing overall explosives loading times and increasing productivity on-bench.
Hole identification functionality available in both BlastIQ enabled delivery systems and BlastIQ Mobile is said to improve in-field blast quality control and assurance. The hole position identification feature helps operators to more easily identify holes on-bench, reducing errors from potential confusion over hole identification and ensuring accurate recording of which holes have been dipped or loaded. This real-time data flow empowers rapid decision making, such as accurately adding new holes and data as needed, improving operational efficiencies.
The new features are now available and applicable across mining and quarrying operations globally. As customers increasingly look to transform their operations with digitally connected technologies, Orica remains at the forefront of digital blasting to optimise blasting outcomes.
Orica global digital product manager Angelo Labriola describes how the company’s digital technologies are helping customers. “Every day around the world, engineers design blasts and those blast outcomes impact as much as 80% of the total mine or quarry processing costs. The process of designing blasts, adjusting designs for real conditions encountered in the field, and understanding the outcomes of blasts is a manual, time-intensive task involving multiple inputs. Optimisation efforts suffer due to lack of time and tools to support that objective in the face of daily operational demands.
“BlastIQ saves time and improves quality by automating processes across the blasting workflow. Inspired by our customers’ feedback, the latest release of BlastIQ will enable our customers to make better decisions, more rapidly and deliver improved blast outcomes across their operations.
“We’re aiming to develop the most robust, most user-friendly set of digital drill and blast tools available, with easy integration across the value chain and delivery of whole of mine and quarry insights required to drive material impact for our customers.”
