What does MINEMAN compete with?
A. MINEMAN’s main competitor is the humble Excel spreadsheet. Spreadsheets are wonderfully flexible but they are not databases. Spreadsheets can also be difficult to maintain, are often opaque in their business assumptions, often relying on specific individuals. When the person who developed the spreadsheet leaves the company, you have a real problem. Spreadsheets are also difficult to audit, so most mining houses these days are phasing them out due to lack of transparency and poor financial controls. Finally, spreadsheets themselves do not have standards and spreadsheet solutions reflect the inconsistent nature of individual preferences. MINEMAN also competes with Mincom and SAP. These big and expensive systems do things that MINEMAN doesn’t do, like plant maintenance, stores and supplies, and cost accounting, and that is what they are good at. MINEMAN’s strength is that it is purpose-built for the actual business of mining, where the money is made, not where the money is spent. Becau
