Short-term planning of a work shift for open-pit mines: A case study

This work deals with the short-term planning problem of a work shift for open-pit mines. The problem involves ore and waste fronts, shovels, heterogeneous truck fleets, and discharge points. The allocation of trucks is dynamic to allow multiple routes to be assigned to each truck. The problem consists of deciding which fronts must be mined and establishing the number of trucks, their routes, and the amount of material transported by them to each discharge point, satisfying a stripping ratio at the desired level. The objectives are to minimize the deviations from the targets for production, chemical grade, and particle size range of each control parameter at each plant and reduce the number of trucks needed for the process. To solve the problem, we developed a mixed-integer linear goal programming model and tested it using real data from an iron ore mine. The results showed that the proposed approach supports decision-makers in the sizing and allocation of truck fleets and in meeting the production and control parameter targets required by the ore processing plants according to the daily scenario, such as low availability of shovels and trucks, flexibility in ore quality, and need for increased production.