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Open Group approves mining standard

Staff Writer
By Staff Writer, ITWeb
Johannesburg, 11 Mar 2013

The Open Group, represented locally by Real IRM, has approved the Exploration and Mining Business Reference Model (EM Model) as an Open Group technical standard.

According to the vendor- and technology-neutral group, this is the first approved standard for the natural resources industry developed by the Exploration, Mining, Metals and Minerals (EMMM) Forum, a Forum of The Open Group.

The development of the EM Model was overseen by The Open Group SA, and is the first step towards establishing a blueprint for organisations in the natural resources industry, providing standard operating practices and support for vendors delivering technical and business solutions to the industry.

"Designed to cater to business activities across a variety of different types of mining organisations, the model is helping companies align both their business and technical procedures to provide better measures for shared services, health, safety and environmental processes," says Sarina Viljoen, senior consultant at Real IRM and forum director of The Open Group EMMM Forum.

"I can confirm that the business reference model was accepted as an Open Group standard and will now form part of the standards information base."

The Open Group also states this is a significant development as the EMMM Forum aims to enable sustainable business value through collaboration around a common reference framework, and to support vendors in their delivery of technical and business solutions.

Its outputs are common reference deliverables such as mining process, capability and information models, the group notes, adding that the first technical standard in the business space, the EM Model, focuses on business processes within the exploration and mining sectors.

"Using the EM Model as a reference allows us to engage with any client and any mining method. Since the model first went public, I have not used anything else as a basis for discussion," says Mike Woodhall, a mining executive with MineRP, a provider of mining technical software, support and mining consulting services.

"The EM Model captures the mining business generically and allows us and the clients to discuss further levels of detail based on understanding the specifics of the mining method. This is one of the two most significant parts of the exercise: the fact we have a multiparty definition - no one person could have produced the model - and the fact that we could capture it legibly on one page."

Viljoen adds that forum member organisations find the collaboration especially useful as it drives insight and clarity on shared challenges: "The forum has built on the very significant endorsement of its first business process model by Gartner in its report "Process for Defining Architecture in an Integrated Mining Enterprise, 2020".

"In the report, Gartner suggests companies in the mining industry look to enterprise architectures as a way of creating better efficiencies and integration across the business, information and technology processes within mining companies," Viljoen concludes.

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