Smart Practices for Mine Planning and Scheduling

If you want a building to be strong, you must go for a firm foundation. This principle is also applied when it comes to mining. For any mining venture to be successful, you need to use the best practices in planning. Smart mine planning and scheduling must factor the following:

• Geo-data from the mine.
• Production capacity.
• Equipment and manpower availability.
• Demand and supply of your minerals.
• Production costs.
• Health and safety.
• The legal, environmental, and community considerations.

Once you have put the above factors into consideration, here are the best practices to follow:

Ensure to Comprehend the Mine Planning Procedure

Though this looks pretty obvious, some people often overlook it and end up incurring heavy losses. Here, you need to appreciate that every mine is different and its operation plan should follow these steps:

• Gathering survey information including sample analysis and quantity of deposits assessment.
• Developing a geo model of the preferred mining structure and chemistry from the gathered data. At this point, make sure to identify the expected constraints.
• Creating 3D mining blocks demonstrating the best ground control plans and scheduling.
• Determine the resource quantity in the targeted mining blocks. Use the data to craft a production schedule.

Identify the Mining Process Challenges

When planning a mining process, every stage should be carefully analyzed to ensure the potential challenges are pre-identified. For example, engineers might take longer interrogating the geo models. But this is crucial especially when targeting long-term mining. Some challenges might require a change in technology to address them.

Create and Evaluate Multiple Mine Scenarios

To optimize your mine plan, it is important to have multiple schedules and establish the most effective one. Note that the target is not to simply pick the cheapest, but identifying the one that can be implemented cost-effectively.

To achieve better results, you might consider combining one or two plans. In this industry, combining geological modeling flows can help to overcome major challenges without increasing costs.

Put Emphasis on Operational Excellence

Once you have created the preferred geo-model, make sure to progressively improve it to enhance its excellence. This will help to integrate new components to increase productivity and returns. Greater focus should be directed at adopting automation and new technology for higher output.

When you deploy the best practices in mine planning, you are sure of accuracy, higher productivity, and optimized profits. Note that all scheduling and planning processes should be implemented within the legal frameworks of the areas your mine is operating in.