While people in many disciplines have simply watched information technology
evolve in their chosen field, Bernie Malone has been much more than an observer,
beginning in the 1970s to write software to support his profession and career as
a mining surveyor.
That initiative ultimately paved the way for him to start a
company which plays a leading role in providing strategically important slope
monitoring solutions to the mining industry.
Under Bernie Malone’s guidance West Australian headquartered
Softrock Solutions has honed its skills perfecting slope monitoring systems and
software over more than a decade.
Now, Mr. Malone has chosen to outsource future software
development to Mitrais as a way of insuring the product development roadmap for
a solution that is widely acknowledged as an industry-leader.
A significant technology platform upgrade, from Visual Basic and
Microsoft Access to VB.NET and SQL2005, ushers in the software Quikslope5. A new
and an ongoing partnership with Mitrais will ensure continuity of the product
for Softrock’s growing international customer base says Mr. Malone, a trained
and certified mine surveyor.
Quikslope is used for slope monitoring, the science of monitoring
the movement of slopes, typically found in the walls of open cut mines. These
walls move at various speeds and amounts, depending on the rock structures and
stresses around them. When the speed of movement becomes too high there is a
risk of massive earth slips that can result in death or injury to mine
personnel, loss of mine equipment, loss of production or loss of access into the
pit.
Using survey prisms mounted in mine walls, Quikslope enables more
than 70 Softrock customer sites to manually or automatically monitor slopes.
With many years owning a company that provides surveyors and
survey services to the mining and construction industries, Mr. Malone says the
earlier version of Quikslope was written in-house at the company in Visual Basic
6.
Over recent years the company trialed software development using
contractors, hiring a consultancy and even with its own in house software
engineer.
"We were let down on too many occasions so, while it was a leap of
faith, I decided to try Mitrais because there were obvious savings in labour
cost, the Bali development centre was geographically close and the company
projected a professional image," he said.
"We wanted our development to be managed by a professional company
rather than an individual."
Mr. Malone acknowledges initial reservations about outsourcing
software development, having heard horror stories about costs spiraling out of
control and projects not being completed to specifications.
"After some initial discussions with Mitrais, engaging the
company’s services did not seem such a big step at all: certainly not like going
to India."
Softrock monitored the development of Quikslope5 through receiving
a comprehensive weekly project report and Mr. Malone remains in close
communication with the Bali staff.
"Communication is not an issue. Additionally I visited Bali and
met the development crew.
"As such I am now keen to bed development down with the same
people, people I can trust."
Mr. Malone’s confidence in the relationship with Mitrais is
underpinned through formal work orders and signed agreements between both
parties.
Having used Mitrais graphic design and software testing services,
in addition to software development, Softrock envisages using other Mitrais
services.
Until the release of Quikslope5, Mr. Malone was solely
responsible for writing and maintaining the product in-house.
"Although this was a very good way to launch and upgrade the
product through my experience as a user and a developer, it had the potential to
demand too much of me.
"Quikslope5 is insurance against all product knowledge being
vested solely in me. The relationship with Mitrais will ensure that ongoing
development and support will be totally transparent for our organisation and our
clients," he said.
The planned new and improved functions which will be available
with Quikslope5 include:
- Better data integrity through the use of SQL2005
- Powerful graph edit tools to change the looks of graphs dramatically
without changing the raw data
- Unlimited number of graph points
- Many graph types
- Many velocity types
- Draw gradient lines
- Remove steps
- Remove spikes
- Birds eye view
- 3D CAD capability
- Present prisms in CAD in many modes
- Use normal CAD tools
Quikslope5 positions Softrock Solutions a long way ahead of other
slope monitoring software products because the software is geared for the mining
industry said Mr. Malone
He envisages a significant expansion in the Quikslope customer
base, inspired in part by the reaction Quikslope5 is receiving from Swiss
company Leica Geosystems, the manufacturer of surveying equipment. Softrock
chose to use a Leica SQL database as its data source with Quickslope5, opening
the door to the potentially large market of Leica equipment users worldwide.