The Customer
Sandfire MATSA’s operations, located in the province of Huelva, Spain comprise three underground mines in the municipalities of Almonaster la Real and Calañas. These operations include mineral exploration, extraction, and processing at a modern 4.7 Mt/y plant that operates 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. As part of the international Sandfire Group, Sandfire MATSA works responsibly and safely to produce mineral concentrates, specifically copper, zinc, and lead.
The Opportunity
Over the past decade, MATSA has been steadily expanding its use of Deswik solutions to create efficiencies across its full mining value chain, from long term life-of-mine optimization through to shift level day-to-day planning.
“During the 2023 Deswik User Conference, our mine planning manager learned about the capabilities of Deswik MDM, and we began implementation at our mining operations shortly afterwards.
“In the past, accessing the latest design information was not always straightforward, which highlighted the need for a more structured approach to data management.” – Danilo Crego, Head of Short-Term
Mine Planning & Operations Control at Sandfire MATSA.
The three mines use long-hole open stoping and collectively produce more than 130 stopes per annum. Given the large volume and complexity of data generated, the company identified opportunities to enhance consistency, accessibility, and traceability of its spatial data.
Strengthening these aspects not only supports operational efficiency, but also reinforces safety and reliability, fundamental pillars in the mining industry. With this vision, Sandfire MATSA advanced toward implementing a centralized data management system that ensures a single source of truth and fosters more
streamlined, collaborative workflows.
The Solution
Deswik MDM is a spatial data and workflow management solution. Deswik MDM provides mines with full visibility over their mine planning data to mitigate data-related health and safety risks, improve collaboration, and boost productivity. Working closely with Deswik’s consultants, Sandfire MATSA developed a phased implementation plan for Deswik MDM, starting with importing the company’s survey data.
Sandfire MATSA uses a third-party contractor for surveying at its mines, and onboarding these users was a key first step. The process, which included staff training and the design of new workflows, took around six months. In the next step, Sandfire MATSA’s geologists, geotechnical engineers, technical services and planning teams were upskilled in Deswik MDM for their daily workflows. Drill and blast is currently in the implementation phase, and with this last area Sandfire MATSA will achieve full implementation.
The introduction of Deswik MDM took place concurrently with the implementation of Deswik OPS for short-term planning and shift execution. This ensured an unrestricted flow of data between teams in the office and in the field.
“We’re very close to having everyone across all of our mines use Deswik MDM. Implementations
at the three operations happened simultaneously, but in different steps.” - Danilo Crego.
To learn more about Deswik MDM, please click here.