ABOUT BOOK

The abbreviation “APCOM” stands for “Applications for Computers and Operations Research ~in the Minerals Industry”. When the conference started in 1964, it was an informal meeting ~of scientists from different universities in the USA together with the “Society of Mining ~Engineers” (SME) of the United States. During the years the APCOM conference was ~performed in a mostly bi-annual rhythm. Up to today APCOM maintained its original logo ~formed around a punch card clearly remembering the historic origin of the conference from ~the times prior to the revolution caused by the era of semiconductors. ~In the beginning, APCOM focused on the optimization of geostatistics and resource ~estimation and a number of methods used in these fields were initially presented and discussed ~on APCOM conferences. This field still today is an important part of any APCOM. ~During the years, information technology has dramatically developed, new algorithmic ~methods evolved and the entire fields of electronic communication, machine automation, ~autonomous machines and process optimization developed. Consequently, today, APCOM ~is much more than a meeting of specialists in geostatistics and resource estimation: The ~APCOM has expanded to a conference covering all kinds of Information and Communication ~Technology in the mineral industry: Already in 2005 on the conference in Tuscon/AZ, the ~term “Mining Process Optimization” was presented as the next paradigm shift in mining ~after mechanization and automation, which marked another example of the continued ~innovative impact of the APCOM. Well ahead of the current discussions about “Digital ~Transformation”.