Siemens is again sponsoring the Most Outstanding Contribution to Mining category.
Entrants in this category introduced last year, include individuals from industry, government, academia, or an industry body who have significantly affected positive change in mining or minerals processing in Australia.
Pat Stephenson received the Most Outstanding Contribution to Mining highly commended award in 2007 for his work with the Joint Ore Reserves Committee (JORC).
Stephenson drafted the first version of the 1990 JORC guidelines and coordinated revisions to the code in 1996 and 1999 as secretary.
As Chairman he supervised revisions to the code in 2004 and championed the introduction of the Recognised Overseas Professional Organisations scheme.
2007 Winner
Jeff Whittle won the Most Outstanding Contribution to Mining award.
In 1983 Whittle wrote Three-D as a private venture.
The development of this software is said to be one of the most significant software developments to optimise mine design, and Whittle is a valuable individual for the Australian mining industry, the Prospect judges said.
Three-D is the first implementation of the Lerchs-Grossmann pit optimisation algorithm that could be used with any mining software package on any computer.
Jeff’s wife Ruth set about marketing Three-D for their company Whittle Programming.It took 12 months to make their first sale. Sales gradually grew, and as users gained more experience with the package they ran it many times for sensitivity work.
Whittle thought that there had to be something better than repeatedly running the same program, and this led to the development of Four-D, where the fourth dimension was time. This later became Four-X, when the ability to handle multiple elements was added.
Later, rudimentary schedule optimisation was added to the software.
Four-X has become an industry standard for open pit design, and is used many mining companies world-wide. It is said that mining engineers around the world know that their pits are not optimally designed until they have been ‘whittled’.
In September 2006 the Council of the Australian Computer Society elected Jeff Whittle to the grade of fellow.
Australian Mining will publish a full list of finalists in the November 2008 issue of the magazine followed by a winners’ issue in December.
For information on entering this category, email jessica.darnbrough@reedbusiness.com.au or call Jessica on 02 9422 2909.
Entries close Friday 27 June.