GIM Essentials transforms geological data management processes for gold and lithium company

GIM Essentials helps mid-tier exploration company get the groundwork right on their geological data

An Australian exploration company that targets lithium and gold is advancing a project with a significant gold deposit at the resource stage, and early-stage exploration on the surrounding tenement.

 The company’s Exploration Manager manages the planning and execution of reverse circulation (RC), aircore, diamond and auger drilling campaigns.

Recognising the inefficiencies of paper-based logging and outsourcing their database management, the Exploration Manager and their team took part in a pilot program using acQuire’s new geological data management solution – GIM Essentials. Built for easy and accurate geological data management, GIM Essentials helped the exploration team hit the ground running with their drilling and sampling data.

The constant chase of data

The geology team was collecting and managing an array of geological data including rock chip and soil sample data, geophysical, magnetic susceptibility and downhole data.

In the field, this data was captured on paper before being transferred into an Excel spreadsheet and sent off to be remotely managed in a database.

A lack of data validation at the point of capture and manual data entry into Excel heightened their risk of introducing errors and gaps into the database, potentially going unnoticed until the team requested data exports from their database, either days or weeks later.

“From the point of logging to getting that data into a database and back to you as an export, usually took multiple days and went through multiple people,” said the Exploration Manager.

While the data was well-managed once it had reached the database, the team had no immediate access to this data which meant they didn’t have the information at hand to make quick and confident decisions in the field around extending or redrilling holes, while the drill rig was still there. The biggest cost to their exploration program is drilling, so getting the rig back to site at a later date was costly to the business.

“Our team had validation spreadsheets for everything. Were logs complete? Has data been entered? Have lab results been dispatched? How long have we been waiting for results? If you had a question, we had a sheet. But without getting data in a useable form in a timely fashion, we didn’t have the information to make quick decisions in the field,” said the Exploration Manager.

This also impacted the team’s ability to get geological and lab data consolidated and exported to report findings and interpretations back to the market.

“It could take days to go back and forth to correct data. It’s not ideal when you want to share this information with the market as soon as possible. You knew you had good news to share but until your ducks are in a row with your data, you had to wait. It was incredibly frustrating,” shared the Exploration Manager.

A solid and reliable way of working with GIM Essentials

Recently, the lithium and gold exploration company agreed to participate in a pilot program for GIM Essentials. The exploration team and acQuire team caught up weekly to share product feedback and new feature testing.

“Our team provided input and feedback on how the product could work better for companies like us, and you’d see those changes flow through to the product with regular updates.”

Undertaking the pilot program also uncovered new ways for the exploration team to capture and analyse their geological data.

“We knew we didn’t need a full enterprise-level solution (GIM Suite) that other companies with a lot of database requirements We were after a simpler, more streamlined option.” said the Exploration Manager.

With the support of this company, GIM Essentials was continually developed with the essential workflows to ensure it supports exploration and mining companies, in a way that suits their needs.

“GIM Essentials does the basics well. It covers drill planning, sample planning, logging, sample dispatch, assays, QAQC and exports, and that’s really the bread and butter of what we need.

“By being a part of the development, we helped to not only guide the direction of the GIM Essentials so that it’s moulded to what companies like us need, but it also gave us a bit of direction for our data management processes. It’s become a valuable tool in the way we operate.”

After completing the pilot program, the exploration team were using GIM Essentials to log digitally, plan holes and add drillhole coordinates straight into the database, and anyone their team can update and export data when they need.

“In the past, we would say that because we only drill bits and pieces, we’ll just make do. But if you’re trying to save your geologists time, and you care about the data quality, you need what we’ve got now using GIM Essentials. It really comes down to accessing data and being able to log it in the field and enter the data as you go.”

Hitting the ground running

Coming from a crew of geologists and contractors with different levels of experience using databases and digital logging in the field, the exploration team had to learn their way around GIM Essentials. The team were able to pick up and start using it quickly, with minimal training.

“GIM Essentials is simple to pick up. It’s streamlined and logical – you start with planning and importing data, then you move to data capture and sampling before you start exporting and QAQC. The way it’s designed makes sense.”

As the team began using GIM Essentials to streamline their data management processes and make decisions faster, they also noticed improvements to the flow of data into other systems and the speed and efficiency with which they could share this information with others.

“We have a line of sight of our data now. We know if holes have been logged, assays are in and the status of samples from the lab, all in one place rather than diving into spreadsheets. We can see what we’ve drilled and make decisions immediately because someone’s entered the logs that day. This now saves us days of waiting.”

“The flow of data is also much faster. If data is wrong, you can edit it quickly and easily. And, once the data is all there, we can export it out into 3D modelling software or GIS.”

“It’s such a good feeling to leave a drill program knowing we have dissected the data at the time of drilling, rather than waiting for a summary email to come into my inbox. We can get information faster which enables us to report and interpret findings to the market much faster than before.”

The groundwork for success starts here

Just because you’re not ready to invest in enterprise-level software, doesn’t mean you should be using inferior tools. If you’d like to learn more about how GIM Essentials can help you get the groundwork right with your geological data, get in touch with acQuire.