Understanding plan’s priorities: short term scheduling optimization

Abstract

Three levels are usually applied to mining planning: Long-term sets the strategy while medium and short-terms aim to achieve main targets (ore production, grades, meters developed, metal production, etc.). Manually scheduling a monthly plan, which is a widely used method, can be a difficult task: A 30-day plan can take days to be elaborated and appropriately validated. In a dynamic mine environment where day-to-day compliance var-ies, after the first planned day, some of the tasks will not be executed, some might be delayed and some anticipated. It will be needed to review the plan and so next day operation can be correctly prioritized. Most of the time, rescheduling the full plan might not be an option and suboptimal decisions are made. This paper proposes an algorithm for short-term scheduling in underground mines with a flow shop scheduling with parallel machines model, optimizing and automatizing short term planning process