A tier-1 mining operator saved $4.2M a year on survey with ±0.5% volumetrics

The challenge

A tier-1 mining operator runs multiple active sites where earthwork volumes — stockpiles, pit progression, tailings — drive both operational decisions and regulatory reporting. Measuring them meant sending survey crews out on foot with total stations and GPS rovers, a process that was slow, expensive, and disruptive to active operations. Each manual run cost real money and paused work in the area being surveyed, and the frequency was capped by budget rather than by what operations actually needed to know.

From foot traverses to point clouds

We moved the entire volumetrics workflow onto Airfree Point Cloud and Raster DEM. Drone and aerial LiDAR captures produce dense point clouds of each site; the platform classifies ground returns, builds a surface, and computes cut-and-fill volumes against a reference surface automatically. What took a crew a day now takes a flight and a processing job.

• Aerial and drone LiDAR capture replacing manual foot traverses.
• Automated ground classification and surface generation per capture.
• Cut-and-fill volumes computed against reference surfaces without manual reduction.
• Repeatable captures on operational cadence rather than survey budget.

Accuracy the regulator accepts

Cost savings would mean nothing if the numbers were not defensible. The workflow delivers volumetrics accurate to ±0.5%, well within the tolerance the regulator requires, with every measurement traceable back to the source point cloud and the reference surface used. Compliance reporting became a by-product of the operational workflow rather than a separate exercise.

The result

The operator replaced its manual survey runs entirely, saving $4.2M in annual survey costs while measuring more often, not less. Because captures no longer pause operations, sites can be surveyed on the cadence operations actually need — and the ±0.5% accuracy keeps every regulatory report defensible. The economics changed the behaviour: measurement went from a rationed expense to a routine input.