We’re delighted to announce that the winners of the 2024 Trailblazer Prize are Dr Hoa Bui, Professor Ryan Loxton, Alex Massen-Hane, and Dr Elham Mardaneh from ‘Maintenance Schedule Optimiser’.
Maintenance scheduling optimisation is often seen as a type of resource-constrained project scheduling problem. Existing mathematical models and solution methods, including exact, heuristic, and meta-heuristic approaches, are not fully suited for the unique challenges of real-world scheduling problems in the resources and energy industry, characterised by their large-scale and tight constraints.
Developed by Curtin University researchers to significantly improve upon pre-existing automated maintenance scheduling technology, Maintenance Schedule Optimiser that has been shown to reduce downtime by 25% and headcount by 20% for large shutdowns, bringing systems back online faster and increasing productivity.
Dr Hoa Bui, lead researcher of the project, said of the win: “We developed an optimisation technology capable of automatically generating the shortest duration schedules for thousands of maintenance activities within minutes, taking into account job dependencies, time windows, and resource constraints… This is a testament to our team’s dedication to innovating shutdown scheduling in resources industry through advanced mathematical programming.”
On Friday 30 August, over 350 members of Western Australia’s elite business and academic community gathered at Optus Stadium to discover which exciting innovations developed through work, study or research at Curtin University would take out this year’s Curtinnovation Awards.
To recognise and celebrate the hard work and commitment of those developing commercial solutions for improving resources productivity and critical minerals production and processing, the Resources Technology and Critical Minerals Trailblazer sponsors the Trailblazer Award, awarded for the first time in 2022. Previous winners include Hydrobe (2023) and iFluid (2022).
Developing a more economical and sustainable method to produce manganese is essential, with the critical mineral forming a key component of most lithium ion and conventional alkaline batteries needed in devices like smartphones and laptops, electric vehicles, and energy storage systems. The current production process generates several significant waste-related problems such as unutilised manganese and […]
A small-scale fluidised bed flotation device with the potential to predict industrial-scale performance is entering the final stages of testing with the delivery of 7 prototypes to industry. Developed by researchers at The University of Queensland’s Sustainable Minerals Institute (SMI), the JKHFmini builds on coarse particle flotation technology where a fluidised bed is used to […]
Today the Resources Technology and Critical Minerals Trailblazer announced it has committed $102 million to 47 research initiatives which includes $67.6 million from 50+ industry partners such as BHP, Rio Tinto, Lynas, Woodside Energy, Cadoux, Sakura Ferroalloys, and Xcalibur. The funding supports cutting-edge advancements in exploration, production and downstream processing to advance Australia’s exploration and […]
