Crushing, rail & ship digital twin: 20,000 scenarios evaluated

Problem

A mining operator was making capital and operating decisions across crushing, rail logistics, and ship-loading without an integrated view. Each subsystem had its own model; the interactions between them — and the sensitivity of plant-level outcomes to subsystem capital choices — were invisible.

Approach

R2 built an integrated digital twin spanning crushing, rail, and ship-loading. Each subsystem was modeled in AnyLogic with realistic capacity, queueing, and reliability behavior. RTOP’s Scenario Engine evaluated 20,000+ combinations of capital and operating plans, ranking them on throughput, capital efficiency, and operating cost.

Result

The operator could finally see which capital investments paid back fastest and which subsystem upgrades were the actual throughput bottlenecks — defensible answers to questions that had been unanswerable.