Multi Stage Approach to Mine Scheduling

Quality and production scheduling are becoming an increasingly important consideration in mine planning. Current manual methods of production planning and scheduling are unable to perform the complex calculations needed for an acceptable production schedule which satisfies a specific quality requirement. This study attempts to incorporate mathematical programming as well as an heuristic approach to mine production scheduling. Rather than starting from a given mine layout, the proposed system employs the linear programming and a scheduling routine to determine the sequence in which blocks of ore are to be mined in order to meet production and quality requirements for a given planning horizon. The areas must also satisfy precedence restrictions which are imposed by the mine method. An interactive computer programming package which provides possible alternatives schedules has been tested on an underground coal deposit. The model provided meaningful results, that is, generated a mining sequence that met specified quality and production requirements. Advisors/Committee Members: Scheck, Donald E.