BM-01 · by mule.bot REQUEST THE TECHNICAL BRIEF
Block Model · BM-01 · Planning software

The missing
layer

in autonomous heavy industry operations.

The machines drive themselves now. The plan still lives in an office. Between them sits the layer nobody ships — the one that decides which blocks, which destination, which road — today — and replans when the ground disagrees. Block Model is that layer, built as software: strategy sequences the blocks, campaigns assign them, tactics turn them into paths and actions. As-built writes back up. The plan never goes stale.

3 layers · 1 data structure · both directions. Built by people who spec autonomous haulage for a living.
SIM BENCH 240 · MASS-EX · SERPENTINE ADVANCE
BLOCKS MINED 0 PHASE 1/4 MODEL REV 214
STRATEGIC SEQUENCE CAMPAIGN SET TACTICAL — DIGGING
Decision log
TARGET 14,400 t / dSHIFT 06:00REPLAN: CONTINUOUSAS-BUILT → MODEL: ON

What you're watching: the missing layer at work — the block model executing itself. Steel blocks are the strategic sequence. Orange blocks are this campaign's set. The bright block is being dug — and every removed block writes back into the model that planned it.

§ 1 · Why the layer is missing

Planning software stops at a PDF. Autonomy stops at a waypoint.

The top of the stack and the bottom of the stack are both real, funded, and good at their jobs. They have never spoken to each other — and everything between them is still people.

Exists · the top

Mine & project planning tools

Authoritative about the project, blind to the machines. The plan exports to a PDF, ages a week in a day, and reaches the pit as a verbal instruction.

Exists · the bottom

Machine autonomy

Retrofits, autonomous excavators, haul kits — a machine 30% better at the task it was given, with no idea whether the task still matters.

The missing layer — this is Block Model

Between them today: radios, spreadsheets, and a person in a pickup. That worked when people drove the machines. An autonomous fleet needs the layer built as software — assignment, sequencing, routing, and replanning, connected live to the model above and the machines below.

§ 2 · How the layer works

Strategy sequences. Campaigns assign. Tactics dig.

Block Model fills the layer with three planners on three clocks, sharing one data structure. Every layer reads and writes the same blocks, so a quarterly target becomes a Tuesday work order becomes a machine path — and what actually got dug flows back up without a person retyping it.

LAYER 1 · YEARS → MONTHS

Strategic

Block model planning

The life of the operation, sequenced on the model itself. Phases, benches, cut/fill and grade, shipment and energization dates — scenarios compared in the same blocks the machines will dig. Sets what winning means, by quarter and by month, and reprices it as the ground reports back.

OUT ↓ block sequence + targetsIN ↑ as-built varianceREPLANS: monthly, or on variance
LAYER 2 · DAYS → MONTHS

Campaign

Campaign management

The days, the weeks, the months. Which blocks this campaign, which destination each load, which road gets built before it's needed — fleet assignments, sequences, and routes held against the strategic target and replanned as reality diverges. The layer that turns a sequence into work.

OUT ↓ work orders + routesIN ↑ ground truth, cycle actualsREPLANS: daily, or on exception
LAYER 3 · SECONDS → MINUTES

Tactical

Tactical planning

The task, executed. Paths from zone entry to spot point, loading and dumping cycles, actions sequenced and cleared for autonomous machines — integrated with the autonomy stack you already run, whoever built it. Runs in simulation today; every behavior carries an acceptance test.

OUT ↓ paths + actionsIN ↑ task state, telemetryREPLANS: continuous
↓ Down: targets → work orders → motion. ↑ Up: task state → ground truth → a model that matches the ground. No layer waits for a meeting to hear what changed.
§ 3 · What it stands on

Not three boxes. A vocabulary with 6,397 entries.

The layers can talk because every job on a site is already mapped — named, numbered, testable. When the tactical layer plans an action, it plans a specific node with an acceptance test, not a hope.

9
DIVISIONS — haulage to drill & blast to heavy civil
89
USE CASES — jobs a site manager schedules and can call done
1,068
MANEUVERS — bounded machine behaviors, with site-selectable variants
6,397
NODES — each with an ID, a product, and a measure

Counts from the Autonomous Site Operations Taxonomy v0.1.1 — the schema all three layers speak. Simulation-first: plans are tested against the model before they touch dirt.

§ 4 · Status & the door

Where it is, plainly.

BM-01 · Build state · 2026-08

In development

TACTICALRunning in simulation. Path planning, tracking, load-zone cycles, multi-machine coordination — demonstrated head-to-head against static plans.
CAMPAIGNIn design. Assignment, sequencing, routing, replan triggers — specified against the taxonomy; built with the design partner's reference project.
STRATEGICIn design. Block-model sequencing and target flow-down; scenario compare on the partner's model format.

One door: the design partnership

Block Model gets built on a real reference project, with one partner per field of use — proven in simulation against your current plan before either of us commits to the build. The partner gets first deployment and the exclusivity; everyone else gets a license, later, at license prices.

REQUEST THE TECHNICAL BRIEF
CAPACITY, PLAINLY: one reference project at a time. The architecture paper — “The Missing Layer” — publishes 09.2026. The drawings are public; the build is not.