"A local software company, Bika Lab Systems, of the Western Cape, has developed a combined laboratory information management system (Lims), workflow and content management system aimed at improving the analysis of mineral samples.

As a result of the commodities boom, laboratories have been inundated with requests from mining and exploration companies to assay mineral samples.

Bika Labs project manager Lemoene Smit says that the system enables the chemical analyses of minerals in laboratories on an open-source platform, and the automatic capture and dissemination of information concerning these samples.

The system for the geology and mining industries is known as Bika Fire Assay and will be based on the company's Lims 2 version, an upgrade of their product for standard chemical analysis.

Smit says that Bika Fire Assay is based on the body of knowledge that has been built up over the years by laboratories evaluating mineral samples by way of fire assay, and mining related tribology, water and environmental analysis. Like all other Bika products, Fire Assay will be tailored to individual requirements during implementation and delivered and professionally supported at a fraction of the costs usually associated with proprietary Lims products

Smit invites laboratories that are interested in piloting Fire Assay in a mutually beneficial implementation to contact the company"

The full article is available from the Mining Weekly site at: http://www.miningweekly.co.za/article.php?a_id=105727&al_id=26910