Proving the value of a plant operating change
How MetPilot and ProcessAI Operator are being developed to connect a technical explanation with practical checks and a result the plant can assess
By Krutik Parikh, Director and Metallurgist, Liberate Metallurgy
Consider a familiar scenario in a gold plant. A reagent addition is adjusted, the next reported recovery improves, and the change appears successful. Before making that setting permanent, the metallurgical team needs to establish what else changed. The ore blend may have shifted, throughput may have eased, or the samples may represent different periods.
If the improvement came from different feed conditions, the plant may carry an additional reagent cost without receiving the expected return. Equally, a worthwhile change can be abandoned because its benefit was obscured by a more difficult ore blend.
This is a central question behind Liberate ProcessAI™ Gold: how can the team connect an operating change with enough evidence to understand whether it worked?
MetPilot and the explanation behind a result
MetPilot™, the AI metallurgist assistant within ProcessAI Gold, is being developed to help teams examine observations, compare plausible mechanisms and identify the evidence needed to resolve them.
Take an illustrative carbon-in-leach investigation. Low dissolved oxygen could reflect oxygen delivery, transfer conditions, ore demand or a probe problem. A useful interpretation would compare the available evidence for those explanations and identify what remains uncertain. The observation alone does not establish a recovery loss.
The same approach applies after an intervention. The assessment needs a comparable baseline and measurements that represent the relevant material. MetPilot’s intended role is to keep the process explanation, alternative causes and evidence gaps visible during that review.
ProcessAI Operator and the next practical check
ProcessAI Operator™ is the companion role for the operating team. It translates the investigation into practical priorities, checks, relevant operating limits and conditions for review.
In the oxygen example, the next checks could include confirming the measurement and reviewing oxygen delivery and distribution with the site team. The operating response follows the findings and the site’s approved procedures.
Recording what was checked, when it was checked and what the operator observed also matters. The Shift Actions and Handover workflow is being developed to keep the original evidence, reason for a check and subsequent finding together for review.
Establish a fair comparison
A useful plant trial starts with an agreed question and success measures. Record the conditions that could influence the result, including feed characteristics, throughput, grind size, slurry density and plant availability.
Time alignment deserves particular attention. Material takes time to move through a circuit, and laboratory results become available after sampling. A tailings sample collected shortly after a dosing adjustment may largely represent material treated under the previous conditions. Sample collection periods, circuit residence times and reporting delays need to be understood together.
Check measurement reliability and, where relevant, changes in gold held in solution, on carbon or elsewhere in the circuit. A short movement in a recovery figure does not necessarily translate into the same movement in reconciled metal production.
Assess the value and carry the learning forward
If a trial aims to reduce reagent consumption, assess consumption against the appropriate production basis and confirm that metallurgical performance remains acceptable. If it aims to improve recovery, compare the metal outcome with the additional operating cost. The result must remain within operating and environmental limits.Operator observations and a response sustained over a representative period strengthen that assessment. The Process Manager Brief is intended to keep priorities, constraints, outstanding evidence and value status accessible to the person directing the review.
Together, these roles give the ProcessAI development a practical direction: MetPilot for the technical interpretation, ProcessAI Operator for the next checks, and a consistent basis for reviewing the result.
A focused starting point for ProcessAI Gold
Australian made and developed by Liberate Metallurgy, ProcessAI Gold remains in development. Current previews use simulated and replay data; site-specific benefits are yet to be validated.
Gold operations interested in a private walkthrough or Founding Pilot discussion can start with one recurring operating question. That provides a focused basis for examining the evidence, the usefulness of the investigation and the outcomes that would matter to the site.
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