Block model and constraints in, schedule out
Cognomine takes a block model and the constraints that shape the plan, and returns a scheduled long-term or medium-term plan in minutes. Pit selection, block scheduling and haulage are solved together in a single pass rather than as three separate steps. Here is what happens between upload and export.
- 1
Upload
Bring a block model as a CSV in whatever format your tools export, from Vulcan, Surpac, Datamine, Deswik or Micromine, or as OMF v2. The wizard prompts for the fields it needs, such as x, y and z coordinates, and you pick the matching column from your own file. Optional fields you can skip. Anything mandatory that is missing is flagged before you go further, so you are not waiting on a run to find out.
We have run models over 400MB, around a million raw blocks, on real customer data. Zip the file first and the upload is much faster; upload time depends on your file and your connection, and the solve itself returns in minutes.
Then add the constraints that shape the plan: sequencing rules, capacity limits, grade targets, capital and operating assumptions, and the commodity price decks you want to test against.
You do not have to set everything. Cognomine ships with sensible defaults across the full assumption set, so a first run gives you a useful result without working through every parameter. Change the ones your study actually turns on, and leave the rest until the analysis calls for them.
- 2
Solve: three solves in a single pass
Cognomine encodes the model and constraints and solves pit selection, direct block schedule optimisation, and haulage optimisation in the cloud as one integrated pass. A run returns in minutes rather than the hours or days a long-horizon schedule usually takes, and it runs on our infrastructure, so there is no compute for you to buy or manage and no extra cost per run.
- 3
Review and compare
Read the schedule and its supporting outputs. Change an assumption, solve again, and compare scenarios side by side instead of committing to the first plan that solves.
- 4
Export
Take the schedule and its outputs into your existing workflow. Exports go to Spry and to spreadsheets. Cognomine produces the plan; your tools and your judgement decide what to do with it.
The constraints a long-horizon solver usually cannot hold
A long-horizon model is normally trimmed back to stay solvable in reasonable time. The trimming happens because the solver runs out of capacity, and for no other reason. Cognomine is built to hold more of it in a single solve, including:
- •Ultimate pit selection: which ore is economic to extract
- •Bench and phase sequencing
- •Dig precedence
- •Grade targets
- •Stockpile strategy
- •Dynamic cutoff grade for processing and stockpiling
- •Processing capacity
- •Multiple ore streams, with separate recovery fractions and cutoff grades per stream
- •Haulage capacity and routing
- •Fleet sizing
- •Capital and operating cost assumptions
- •Commodity price decks that vary over the mine life
- •Fleet type
- •Planning horizon
- •Drill-and-blast lag
- •Digger separation
- •Slope constraints
- •Operational policies
Holding more of these in one solve is what produces a schedule that arrives closer to publishable, so your review time goes into judgement rather than reconciliation.
A schedule you can actually run
A schedule that solves fast is not the same as a schedule you can hand to a crew. Most fast schedulers buy their speed by dropping the constraints that make a plan executable, and the planner spends the next week putting them back by hand.
Cognomine holds those constraints in the solve. Drill-and-blast lag is modelled, so the schedule does not ask you to dig ore that has not been shot. Digger separation is enforced, so the plan does not scatter equipment across five faces to chase grade. Slope constraints are solved in, not applied afterwards and reconciled.
The sequence works the same way. Phases and bench precedence give the schedule coherent pools of blocks to work from rather than isolated picks spread across the pit. Within each month, diggers are assigned territories and walked through nearby blocks in a sensible working order. Haulage is solved in the same pass, so the fleet and the routes match the sequence instead of being fitted to it after the fact.
The plan moves equipment the way a crew would. That is the difference between reviewing a schedule and rebuilding it.
Every plan comes out at monthly cadence, including life-of-mine. A ten-year schedule is 120 months of sequencing.
What reblocking does not cost you
Raw block models run to millions of blocks, sometimes far more. No strategic scheduler works at that resolution, because no mine plan is executed at that resolution. Cognomine reblocks automatically before the solve, merging adjacent blocks onto a coarser grid.
What does not get cut is the constraint set: sequencing, dig precedence, grade targets, stockpile strategy, processing and haulage capacity, capital and operating assumptions. The trimming that usually happens to make a long-horizon model solvable is trimming of constraints, and that is the part we do not do.
The schedule comes back on the reblocked grid with coordinates, so it reimports into your tools. If you need to reconcile against the original model at its full resolution, that mapping happens on your side.
It also means the size of your raw model is not what sets solve time. Bringing your full model costs you nothing, and one credit still covers unlimited runs on it.
High Fidelity mode. Reblocking trades spatial resolution for solve time, and coarser scheduling units mean more waste travels with the ore. High Fidelity keeps the model closer to its original resolution, which produces a plan that mines less waste and carries more value. It takes longer, around an hour against under ten minutes for a standard run, so it suits the run you commit to rather than the scenarios you sweep through on the way there.
Two limits apply, and they measure different things. Cognomine accepts raw block models up to around one million blocks. Every model is then reduced to scheduling units before solving: under 100,000 in a standard run, up to 500,000 in High Fidelity. A model well inside the block limit is still reblocked, because the scheduling unit ceiling is what governs the solve.
High Fidelity is included in every credit. There is no additional charge and no separate entitlement.
Bring your phases, or let Cognomine propose them
If you already have a phased model, Cognomine works with it. If you do not, it recommends indicative phases and shows you which areas of the deposit carry the most value and should be prioritised.
That matters most on early-stage work, where phasing is one of the things the study is meant to determine. You do not need a finished phase design to get a schedule back.
Quantum-ready, running today
Cognomine is built on a quantum-ready compute engine. It encodes a planning problem the way a quantum system would, then solves it on cloud GPUs. The speed is available now, on standard hardware, with a path to quantum processors as they mature and no change to how the problem is encoded. You do not need to know any of this to use Cognomine. It matters only because it is why the solve is fast.
What we are building next
Optimised phasing. More precise phase recommendations, driven by the economic sequencing of the pit rather than geometry alone.
This is in active development. It is not part of what you buy today, and we will tell you as soon as it lands.
Cloud, kept in Australia
Cognomine runs in the cloud, with nothing to install. Your data, and your clients' data, stays in Australia, is logically isolated to your account, and is deleted when your entitlement ends. The full data story, including encryption, retention, and standards, is on the security page.
Some enterprises need to run planning tools entirely inside their own environment, offline. If that is you, talk to us about what an on-site deployment would require.
See it on your scenario
If you have a strategic, life-of-mine or medium-term study running, or one you are scoping, we would like to hear about it.
