In July 2020, RPMGlobal acquired Canadian mining tech firm Revolution Mining Software, including the unfinished version of Attain. According to RPMGlobal, the commercial release of Attain is the conclusion of additional development and an extensive quality assurance, testing and release readiness programme that the company completes before any new product is released to the market.

Attain is a software solution designed to solve the challenge of mine planning horizon misalignment by ensuring operational mine planning is systematically aligned with the long-term plan, resulting in optimised short-term schedules and improved NPV.

RPMGlobal noted that the dynamic nature of mining operations creates a high degree of uncertainty across many different elements. Unexpected events often arise which require mine planners to reschedule their mine plan; however, should the short-term mine plan deviate too far off course from the long-term plan then value can be eroded by the failure to achieve the strategic long-term goals.

According to the company, once a schedule becomes misaligned with the longer-term plan, Attain will produce feasible, optimised short-range schedules that are aligned with the long-range schedule. These alternatives are offered to the mine planner, who is then able to review and select the preferred short-range schedule.

Attain targets the two-to-six-month planning horizon and builds a short-term schedule that considers the actual results to-date while maintaining alignment with the long-term plan. The user can simply select their preferred long-term plan, which then becomes Attain's optimisation objective.

Richard Mathews, CEO of RPMGlobal, commented: "Short-term planners are always reacting to events that cause a deviation from the mine plan but they often don't have a way of knowing what the unintended consequences of the resulting replanning decisions are on the life of the mine. With Attain, users can make informed decisions while adjusting the short-term plan knowing that the long-term plan objectives are being met. Attain complements all mine planning tools and processes that mining operations use."

He added that the RPMGlobal team was excited to launch the Attain solution to the market. He said: "We'll be seeking feedback from our early Attain adopters to prioritise future development to ensure we are continually providing innovative solutions that help operations unlock greater levels of productivity and profitability."