How engineers and geologists are using digital twin technology to sustain mine-to-mill/pit-to-port value chain optimisation

Speaker:  Dr Penny Stewart, CEO and Founder PETRA

Abstract:  The seminar will provide examples of how ore tracking and machine learning has been used to build operating models across the mine value chain, and will include how the inspiration for site-specific models using operational data came through my PhD studies at the JKMRC – in fact this work led to me being the recipient of the 2002 Ian Morley Prize.

Bio:  Penny Stewart is a mining engineer and the founder and CEO of PETRA. Penny worked on mine sites for five years before obtaining her Queensland 1st Class Mine Managers’ Certificate of Competency. It was during her time working in the underground and open pit mines of WA that she learnt how geological uncertainty affects our ability to mine to plan. This experience led her to undertake PhD studies at The University of Queensland’s JKMRC, where she developed statistical models to predict the mechanical behaviour of rock, and was awarded the Ian Morley Prize for this work. In 2015, Penny founded PETRA with the hypothesis that the engineering behaviour of rock throughout a mine is best estimated by feeding back hundreds of millions of tonnes of actual mine performance data into engineering models and optimisations. Five years later Petra’s flagship product, MAXTA software suite does exactly that.