Published: 4 July 2025
gmg brisbane forum 2025
AMC Consultants is excited to present at the Global Mining Guidelines (GMG) Brisbane Forum 2025, taking place at the University of Queensland's St Lucia Campus from Wednesday, 16 July to Thursday, 17 July 2025.
Cailli Knievel, Technical Lead Underground Mining, will present on Rethinking Mine Design - The Need for Collective Change.
The GMG Brisbane Forum will join mining leaders, technology innovators and operational experts over a two-day event covering themes including decarbonization and electrification, AI and data integration, emerging technologies, and full-site operational integration.
This forum unites speakers and participants from across the globe to tackle mining’s biggest challenges and explore its most promising opportunities.
AMC at the Conference
Seamless Horizons: Connecting Value Chains in Mining Across Space and Time
Topic: Rethinking Mine Design - The Need for Collective Change
Author and Presenter: Cailli Knievel, Technical Lead Underground Mining
Date: Thursday, 17 July 2025
Time: 12.55 - 1.20 PM
The current approach to mine design is fundamentally flawed. Despite decades of technological progress and an increasing awareness of the complexity of planning for uncertainty, mining continues to struggle with rigid, top-down project and business planning cycles that often dictate outcomes before meaningful engineering begins. There is a prevailing assumption that mining engineers control the design processes they work within, whereas the reality is that many engineers operate within unnecessary constraints shaped by regulatory requirements, business objectives, and financial and risk metrics that limit innovation and prejudice against practicality.
This presentation explores how misaligned objectives, disconnected frameworks, and unrealistic expectations can unknowingly undermine effective mine design and destroy value. It advocates for a collaborative rethink of how design is defined, governed, and executed - placing value creation, curiosity, and the principles of smarter mining at the centre.
With typical mining project cycles lasting 20+ years, a key question remains: When are we going to unshackle ourselves from how we’ve done things in the past and start looking at what we need to be doing to set ourselves up for the mine of the future?
Meet Our Presenter
Cailli Knievel
Technical Lead Underground Mining
Cailli is a highly skilled mining engineer with over 30 years of experience, including 20 years of site-based roles in Australia, Africa, Europe, South America and the USA, as well as a further ten years in various corporate and consulting roles. Cailli joined AMC as Underground Manager and Principal Mining Engineer in October 2024. Prior to this, Cailli was the Manager of Mine Planning at AngloGold Ashanti Australia from 2020 to 2024, where she was responsible for the underground mine planning function for the Australian operations. Cailli played a crucial role in developing the regional strategy and ensuring the business objectives of the strategic mine plan were met.