The development of an information management system for the improvement of drilling and blasting in mining operations

Abstract

The absence of a centralised system which allows the storage, retrieval and analysis of disparate data relating to blasting clearly highlighted the need for a blast management system. The JKMRC Blast Management System (JKBMS) has been designed specifically for day to day use by mining engineers in conjunction with the JKSimBlast suite of blast design software tools. It allows the user to store data in a manner which facilitates its retrieval and archival. By using the JKBMS over a period of time, a picture can be constructed of how certain parts of the rockmass behave when blasted in a particular manner and which blast configurations were successful in achieving pre-defined outcomes. The storage of this information in database format allows querying to retrieve scenarios which meet certain criteria, and to use this information to further optimise the outcomes from a blast.