2023 SAG Award Winners

Anglo American

View Photo(s) of Award Presentation

Project Goal

Develop a system that could support effective risk management of mine waste dumps and stockpiles throughout Anglo American operations globally.
At each mine, users should be able to capture basic information such as the mine name, waste dump name, status of the waste dump, date commissioned and the geometry of the waste dump/stockpile. Additionally, users at each mine should be able to capture various geotechnical engineering aspects of the waste dump such as performance, construction, material characteristics, stability, overburden, foundation, engineering, and risk. This must also be aligned with global best practice for waste dump design and management.

In terms of Reporting, the system should provide customisable dashboards indicating status of dumps, hazard classification and risk levels at mine level and aggregated to Business Unit Level and Corporate Level. The objective of this reporting is to inform critical control requirements to effectively manage the risk.

Business Problem Solved

The development of waste dump design objectives is usually closely related to post-closure land use considerations and must align with regulatory obligations. For Anglo American, waste dump and stockpile management objectives must therefore be aligned to deliver value through integrated, risk- and opportunities-based closure planning and execution, to establish safe, stable, and non-polluting post-mining landscapes that leave a positive and sustainable legacy for stakeholders. A global information management system anchored by ArcGIS Enterprise has enabled Anglo American to achieve these management objectives by providing tools to support the iterative design process for waste dumps that includes waste dumps designs, stability analysis, hazard classification, risk assessment, monitoring as well as reconciliation during implementation, and reporting.

Technology Implemented

The main ESRI technology deployed here is ArcGIS Pro and ArcGIS Enterprise. ArcGIS Pro was used to create the features (waste dumps), for publishing onto ArcGIS Enterprise as web services. In addition, ArcGIS Pro was used to create attribute rules to do complex calculations to rate the waste dumps according to different geotechnical engineering criteria.
Because the system supports various Anglo-American operations across the globe it was important for each mine to have its own version of the geodatabase and updates are managed through branch versioning.
The ArcGIS Enterprise portal is used to share and access the waste dump editing web app and the dashboards indicating hazard classification and risk levels of the dumps. Mine groups were created within portal as means of controlling access to the information. Anglo American branded and tailored web pages were designed using ArcGIS Enterprise Sites to enhance user experience.

Development Team Biography

Marnus Bester – Principal Geotechnical Engineer – Waste Dumps – Anglo American – Group Mining
Tankiso Mabote – Senior Specialist GIS- Anglo American – Kumba Iron Ore
Thandile Dlokweni – Principal Geotechnical Engineer – Anglo American- Kumba Iron Ore
Timothy Russell – Senior Geotechnical Engineer – Anglo American - Kumba Iron Ore
Lesley Munsamy – Head of Geotechnical Engineering – Anglo American – Group Mining - Project Sponsor
GISCOE – Geospatial Information Consultants