Case studies

SPb-Giproshaht is a consulting company that operates internationally and carries out design, procurement, and construction projects for the mining industry. Their flagship project in this domain is a haulage system optimization project for the mining company Medvezhy Ruchey, one of the largest miners of copper-nickel sulfide ores. Medvezhy Ruchey partnered with SPb-Giproshaht to develop mining haulage simulation models of an ore deposit that could be used for haulage system routing and mining processes optimization.

RUSCON is one of the major container shipping companies in the CIS region. The company needed a container yard planning solution to modernize one of the rail container terminal and determine maximum capacity of the whole facility and its components. It sought the expertise of container yard simulation specialists from Dilibrium Consulting Company to model terminal components including the container yard, transshipment equipment, and rail infrastructure.

A public electricity company in France needed to optimize routes to ensure that all orders were delivered by electric trucks on time. They decided to develop a delivery route optimization model using simulation software, visualize the logistics network, and collect statistics. To reflect the real system, the team had to consider trucks’ battery capacity, chargers’ electric power, and many other constraints.

Relatively widespread use of electric vehicles and the need to support them with services and charging infrastructure, prompted General Electric Global Research team to conduct research into the related business demand and new technologies. For the project, the team developed two prototype models: a granular EV adoption model and a charging network simulation.

Any underground works, be it in construction or mining, are distinguished by limited operating resources and space, as well as close interconnections between processes. As a result, specialists inevitably face uncertainties when developing schedules. To create a new project scheduling technique, a team of engineers opted to use simulation modeling software.

Manufacturing and economic conditions are so complicated and unstable that it makes traditional scheduling methods ineffective. A major Eastern European steel pipe manufacturing plant decided to improve production planning using simulation software. In addition, the company wanted to minimize gaps and daily fluctuations of the orders handover, identify bottlenecks, and improve order routes.

Demand at a coal loading port was forecast to grow and exceed the facility’s operating capacity. To meet this expected increase in demand, the port’s operators had to determine the current maximum capacity of the facility, identify the main bottlenecks, and test different extension scenarios in a risk-free digital environment using simulation modeling.

Ozon is one of the largest online retailers in Eastern Europe, with overall sales around $5 billion in 2019. The company is growing year by year by expanding delivery zones, launching new services, etc. Therefore, the company needs to optimize its infrastructure continuously. To maintain a high service level and deliver goods on time, it was necessary to set up a new distribution network and minimize the distance from DC’s to final destinations at the same time.

One of Tata Steel's steel manufacturing units showed potential for increasing the overall unit throughput by optimizing the internal logistics systems. The opportunity was in improving crane and ladle handling by introducing optimized process flows and testing different layout configurations.

One of the largest oil and gas companies faced financial inefficiency from depleting deposits: approximately 20% of the deposits yielded little if any profit. In order to maintain a strong performance in a context of high uncertainty, the company had to make operational decisions about whether they should shut down or retain their marginally profitable wells, and whether it made sense to repair breakages.