Operations Research For Mining: A Classification and Literature Review

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Operations research for mining: A classiﬁcation and literature review
Article · January 2011
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Erhan Kozan Shi-Qiang (Samuel) Liu

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A
Operations Research for Mining: A Classification and Literature

Review
Erhan Kozan and Shi Qiang Liu

Mathematical Sciences, Queensland University of Technology
2 George St, GPO Box 2434, Brisbane Qld 4001 Australia
Abstract
In this paper, we describe the main processes and operations in mining industries and present a
comprehensive survey of operations research methodologies that have been applied over the last
several decades. The literature review is classified into four main categories: mine design; mine
production; mine transportation; and mine evaluation. Mining design models are further
separated according to two main mining methods: open-pit and underground. Moreover, mine
production models are subcategorised into two groups: ore mining and coal mining. Mine
transportation models are further partitioned in accordance with fleet management, truck haulage
and train scheduling. Mine evaluation models are further subdivided into four clusters in terms of
mining method selection, quality control, financial risks and environmental protection. The main
characteristics of four Australian commercial mining software are addressed and compared. This
paper bridges the gaps in the literature and motivates researchers to develop more applicable,
realistic and comprehensive operations research models and solution techniques that are directly
linked with mining industries.
Keywords: mine design; mine production, mine transportation; mine evaluation; mine planning;
mine scheduling.
1. Introduction
Mining activities have been carried out by humans for millennia. Mining is the process of
excavating the natural minerals such as metallic ore (iron), non-metallic ore (phosphate) and
fossil fuels (coal) from the earth’s crust. Mining methods are mainly divided into two groups:
open-pit mining and underground mining. Most of the world’s ore mineral is extracted by open-
pit mining, especially in Australia. For orebodies that lie a considerable distance below the
surface, underground mining method is considered instead.
Modern mining is quite complicated procedure that may sustain over many years and necessitate
huge expenditure. Mining process involves combinations of estimating, drilling, blasting,
excavating, hoisting, crushing and hauling, as well as measures for quality control, health and
safety, financial risks and environmental impacts. To maximize the profit and the utilisation of
mine reserves while providing a better development program, a good mining plan/schedule must

Corresponding author: Tel: +61 7 3138 1029; Fax: +61 7 3138 2310.
Email: e.kozan@qut.edu.au
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not only meet both the long-range and short-range mining requirements but also satisfy many
practical details that are unique to day-to-day operations. The operation of a mine is an enormous
and complex task, particularly for mines having a life of many years and hundred thousands of
blocks. In the last decades, Operations Research (OR) methodologies have been successfully
applied to resolve a number of essential problems that particularly arise in the planning and
scheduling stage of mining production.
In practice, an early task in mine management is the establishment of an accurate two-

dimensional (2D) or three-dimensional (3D) block model for the deposit. The mine production
planning and scheduling problems need to consider the nature of mine quality, quantity
characteristics and various operational requirements. The most commonly used representation of
an orebody for the purposes of mathematical modelling are block models which are applied for
determining the quantities of ores and wastes to be excavated. In the block model, the orebody is
divided into a regular 2D or 3D array of blocks, each of which has individual attributes such as
the tonnage of ore and the expected value. The block dimensions are dependent on the physical
characteristics of the mine such as pit slopes, dip of deposit, drill holes, grade representation and
grade variability as well as the equipment used. The principal aim of block model is to maximise
the net present value (NPV) by selecting a closed subset of blocks while satisfying the precedence
relationships or slope requirements.
To meet the demand, a typical mine production sequence aims at finding the blocks that are to be
excavated in sequence from the available ones in periods, subject to a variety of physical,
geological and operational constraints. The mine production sequencing problem consists of
deciding which block should be excavated and when they should be extracted in a certain time
period.
In this paper, we identify and classify a series of theoretic and practical OR approaches for
mining industries from a different view in terms of the following four main categories: mine
design; mine production; mine transportation; and mine evaluation. Particularly, the mine
transportation, which is subcategorised into fleet management, truck haulage and train
scheduling, and mine evaluation, which is subdivided into mining method selection, quality
control, financial risks and environmental protection, are up to date.
2. Mine Design
A fundamental and vital mining problem is to determine the contours of an open-pit mine (blocks
of a mine), based on geological data and engineering feasibility requirements to yield maximum
possible net income. For differentiating a mine production sequencing problems, the problems of
determining the optimum ultimate pit limits (contours) of a mine are called the mine design
problems in this paper.
Open-pit mine design

To design a pit, the entire volume is subdivided into blocks and the value of the ore in each block
is estimated by geological information. For slope requirements of the pit, precedence
relationships that are the most critical constraints in the mine design problems must be satisfied.
Figure 1(a) illustrates the precedence relationship of a 2D block model. In most cases, it is
assumed that the pit slope cannot exceed 45 degree, which thus means that a block (block 1)
cannot be mined until the one (block 2) located directly above it and its two immediate
neighbours (blocks 3 and 4) have been removed. Obviously, due to complexity of precedence
relationships, the 3D block model is much more complicated than the 2D block model. Figure
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1(b) illustrates the precedence relations of a 3D block model, in which a block (block 5) cannot
be extracted until the ones (blocks 6, 7, 8, 9 and 10) on the level directly above and one of four
blocks facing this block on the same level (i.e., one of four blocks directly under blocks 6, 7, 8, 9
and 10) have been excavated. Subject to these constraints, the objective is to determine the
closed subset of blocks that maximise the net profit.
Fig.1: Illustration of precedence relationship between a block and its immediate predecessors
Illustrated in Figure 2, the open-pit block problem can be formally represented by a directed
network flow graph , where is a set of nodes (blocks) and is a set of conjunctive
arcs. In this graph, precedence constraints determined by to impose the slope requirements. If
block (e.g., node 6 in Figure 2) is extracted immediately before block (e.g., node 2 in Figure
2), there is a conjunctive arc from node to node . Each block corresponds to a node in with a
weight representing the net value of an individual block . That value is either positive or
negative as the value is the difference between ore value in this block and the cost of excavating
it. Thus, to decide which blocks are selected to extract for maximising the net profit is equivalent
to finding a subset of nodes leading to a maximum weight. This fundamental mine design
problem may be modelled as a linear programming model as follows.
Fig. 2: A directed network flow graph for mine design
Parameters:
a set of nodes (blocks) in a directed network flow graph
a set of conjunctive arcs in a directed network flow graph
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weigh of node that corresponds to block
Decision variables:
a binary variable that is 1 if node is chosen, and 0 otherwise.
Mathematical formulation for the general open-pit mine design problem:
Objective:
(1)
Subject to:
(2)
, (3)
Constraint (2) ensures that if node is chosen, node should also be selected because of their
precedence relationship. Constraint (3) requires that decision variables be binary values.
As pioneers, Lerchs and Grossmann (1965) present to the mining community an algorithm to find
the optimum design for an open-pit mine. The planning of a mining program involves the design
of the ultimate shape of this open surface. They show that an optimal solution of the mine design
problem is equivalent to finding the maximum closure of a directed network flow graph model.
The approach is based on the following assumptions: the type of material, its mine value and its
extraction cost is given for each block; restrictions on the geometry (surface boundaries and
maximum allowable wall slopes) of the pit are specified; and the objective is to maximise the net
profit – total mine value of material extracted minus total extraction cost. Two numerical
methods are proposed to determine the pit contour with the maximum profit: a simple dynamic
programming algorithm for the 2D pit and a more complicated iterative algorithm (known as
Lerchs-Grossmann algorithm) for the 3D pit.
However, the Lerchs-Grossmann algorithm is vague due to the lack of mathematical validations.
Caccetta and Giannini (1998) present several mathematical theorems in their implementation and
development of Lerchs-Grossmann algorithm. Their work is helpful in explaining the structure
and characteristics of Lerchs-Grossmann algorithm. For example, a dynamic programming may
be used to find reasonable bounds to the optimum pit contour. Underwood and Tolwinski (1998)
transform the Lerchs-Grossmann approach by mathematical programming settings. Thus, the
mine-design graph model is represented by matrices and solved by generic linear programming
formulation. A dual simplex approach is developed and compared with Lerchs-Grossmann
algorithm by validating some mathematical lemmas and remarks. Their academic contribution is
to provide an interpretation of the network flow graph theoretic methodology from a
mathematical programming viewpoint.
By formulating the open-pit mine as the maximum closure of a directed network flow graph, the
mine design problem is actually equivalent to the maximum flow or the minimum cut problem.
For the maximum flow problem, there are a number of efficient algorithms that have been
developed over the last decade. Relating to implementation and performance analysis for the
mine design problems, Hochbaum and Chen (2000) present a detailed study of the push-relabel
algorithm as compared to the Lerchs-Grossmann algorithm. The authors propose an
implementation of the push-relabel algorithm that adapts to the features of the mine design
problem. Furthermore, Hochbaum (2008) introduces a novel so-called pseudoflow algorithm for
the maximum blocking cut problem. The maximum flow problem can be solved by the simplex
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variant of pseudoflow algorithm. In another extended research, Chandran and Hochbaum (2009)
conduct a computational study of the pseudoflow and push-relabel algorithms for the maximum
flow problem. Two algorithms are tested and compared on several problem instances from the
literature. The computational experiments show that implementation of the pseudoflow algorithm
is faster than the push-relabel algorithm on most of the problem instances. However, the
pseudoflow and push-relabel algorithms are not fully justified by real-world implementations in
mining industries.
Underground mine design

Open-pit mines are used when deposits of minerals are found near the surface, where waste rock
covering the valuable deposit is relatively thin or minerals of interest is structurally unsuitable for
tunnelling. In other scenarios, the mining companies may have to shut down the open-pit mines
and begin mining underground due to some technical and safety considerations including: more
complicated and dangerous haulage routes and higher probability of encountering underground
water for the deeper pits (see Kuchta et al. 2004).
In underground mining operation, the mineral is accessed and hauled to the surface through a
network of tunnels, which consist of ramps, hanging walls, stopes, horizontal load-haul-dump
(LHD) vehicles and vertical shafts. As a result, underground design is very different in nature
from open-pit design. In the literature, the underground mine design problem (i.e., the problem of
designing the network of tunnels used for accessing underground orebodies so as to minimise the
associated construction and operational cost) receive very little attention in OR community due to
its complexity. Brazil and Thomas (2006) investigate and establish the fundamental underground
mine design problem as a Steiner Tree network model. According to their interpretation, the
Steiner Tree network model like the Lerchs-Grossman approach would form a promising basis on
later optimisation analysis and lead to commercial mining software for underground mine design.
Different from open-pit mine design, underground mine design tends to minimise the length of
weighted Euclidean Steiner Tree network, by assuming that all the costs (construction costs,
development costs, haulage costs) are proportional to the length of ramps and shafts as illustrated
in Figure 3,
Fig. 3: A network for underground mine design
The fundamental underground mine design can be modelled and explained as follows:
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Parameters:
a given undirected Euclidean graph
a set of vertices
a set of edges
a nonnegative length (proportional to the cost) of an edge
a factional value between 0 and 1 of an edge
Decision variables:
a subset of edges related to a subset of vertices
a bound value related to a subset of nodes
Mathematical formulation for a generalised Steiner Tree network problem:
Objective:
(4)
Subject to:
(5)
(6)
The objective is to find a network in Euclidean 3-space so that the total length of embedded links
in the network is minimised. The critical constraint is the satisfaction of the given bound on the
network.
For more details on Steiner Network problems, please refer to Costa et al. (2008), Hwang and
Richards (1992) and Wong (1984).
In summary, the open-pit mine design problem for finding the ultimate pit limits or obtaining a
final pit contour has been widely studied since the pioneering work of Lerchs and Grossmann
(1965). Nowadays, due to its simplicity and usefulness, the 2D (3D) block models and Lerchs-
Grossmann approach (its subsequent extensions and improvements) have been commonly used by
most commercial mining software packages (e.g., Whittle) for open-pit mine design. In
comparison, there is a long way to go for the development of practical network optimisation
techniques for underground mine design.
3. Mine Production
The development of effective open-pit mine planning and scheduling models which can generate
the extraction sequence of mining blocks over short periods of time, has become more essential in
today’s competitive and high risk mining world with volatile commodity prices. There have been
various successful attempts to develop such models using OR methodologies.
3.1 Ore Mining Production
Ore mining belongs to hard-rock mining techniques that are used to excavate hard minerals,
mainly those containing metals such as ore including iron, gold, silver, copper, zinc, nickel and
lead. In contrast, soft-rock mining refers to excavation of softer minerals such as coal, sands,
phosphate or salt.
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Open-Pit Mining Production
In Australia, most ore mines are extensively exploited by open-pit cut. Open-pit mining is
different from other extractive methods that require tunnelling into the earth. The open-pit
mining method is an excavation made at the surface of the ground. To expose the ore, it is
generally necessary to excavate and relocate large quantities of waste rock. A bench may be
defined as a ledge that forms a single level of operation above which mineral or waste materials
are mined back to a bench face.
As a matter of fact, many researchers and mining engineers are confused with the mine design
problem and the mine production problem. The mine design problem is a “planning” problem
because it doesn’t need to sequence the blocks. Moreover, most researchers misuse the term
“scheduling” for mine production problems. Actually, nearly all of studied mine production
problems (see Caccetta and Hill, 2003, Razaman, 2007; Boland et al., 2009; Bley et al., 2010) in
the literature should be regarded and termed as “sequencing” problems rather than “scheduling”
problems in a rigorous sense, because indeed these mine production models do not determine the
timing factors (e.g., starting time, processing time and completion time of an operation). To
rectify the misconception and avoid confusion, we replace the inappropriate term “mine
production scheduling” by the proper term “mine production sequencing” in this paper.
Providentially, we also notice that a recent paper (see Cullenbine, Wood and Newman, 2011)
starts to correct this misconception by using the term “mine block sequencing” rather than “mine
block scheduling” for mine production.
In the literature, the following valuable papers deal with the open-pit mine production sequencing
problem. Sundar and Acharya (1995) present two mathematical programming models: a LP
model for the choice of blocks to be blasted; and a stochastic programming model for the
selection of the blasted areas to be excavated and the quantity of ores and wastes to be mined
from each of the selected blocks. Caccetta and Hill (2003) present a mixed integer programming
(MIP) model for a general mine production sequencing problem. However, due to software
commercialisation and confidentiality agreements, they only summarise some important features
and the full details of all aspects of their proposed branch-and-cut solution approach are not
provided in this paper.
The MIP model proposed by Caccetta and Hill (2003) has been well known in mining industries
and received considerable attention. The objective of this MIP model is to maximise the profits
in certain periods over which the blocks are sequenced. The following constraints are considered
in the MIP model: a block is removed in one period only; the precedence relationships between
blocks are satisfied; the ore tonnage of each block equals milling capacity in each period; the
amount of ore that is milled in each period is between the predetermined lower bound and upper
bound values; the tonnage of waste removed does not exceed the prescribed upper bounds. The
decision variable is a binary variable that equals 1 if block is mined in periods from 1 to ;
and 0 otherwise.
Boland et al. (2009) further relate this MIP model with a number of more general planning
problems like the precedence-constrained knapsack problem, the assembly line balancing
problem and resource-constrained project scheduling problem. Thus, they develop a LP-based
disaggregation approach to solve this MIP model. Bley et al. (2010) improve this MIP
formulation by adding inequalities derived by combining the precedence and production
constraints. For example, they use the entire (union) predecessor set to replace the immediate
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(separate) predecessor set to aggregate the formulation. Figure 4 illustrates two aggregation
methods. Due to lack of benchmark data and results, however, it is hard to justify the efficiency
and optimality of the relaxed approaches proposed by Boland et al. (2009) and Bley et al. (2010).
Fig.4: Illustration of two aggregation methods (1) immediate predecessors of one block; (2) entire
predecessors of one block; (3) separate predecessors of two blocks; (4) union predecessors of two
blocks.
Many researchers indicate that large size of real-world instances (e.g., millions of blocks over 100
time periods) has made the MIP model impractical for use, thus leading to the development of
numerous heuristic methods. The following papers address heuristic approaches for mine
production sequencing problems. Cullenbine, Wood and Newman (2011) develop a sliding-time-
window heuristic for the open-pit mine block sequencing problem. This heuristic algorithm uses
an “earliest start time” or “earliest extraction period” for each block under maximum production
and maximum processing capacities. However, the proposed heuristic approach cannot guarantee
to find a feasible solution of sub-models because of assumptions and relaxed variables. Myburgh
and Deb (2010) report an application of evolutionary algorithm for mine production sequencing.
In their proposed evolutionary optimisation procedure, a starting feasible sequence of blocks
represented as a chromosome is iteratively improved by genetic operators such as crossover and
mutation. However, it is unclear how the feasibility of neighbouring solutions can be guaranteed
subject to constraints of precedence relationships, resource capacities and time periods.
Chicoisne et al. (2009) develop a quick rounding algorithm based on topological sorting. In the
first step, a topological sorting algorithm is used to obtain the topological sequence of nodes in a
directed graph. In the second step, the earliest possible extraction time of each block is
determined based on resource constraints. Finally, a local search procedure is developed for
improving the initial feasible solution. This method is promising as it can efficiently find near-
optimal solutions for large instances with more than 150k blocks and 15 time periods. Ramazan
(2007) develops a so-called “Fundamental Tree Algorithm” with LP to aggregate a subset of
blocks as branched trees for mine design planning. This algorithm is useful to reduce number of
integer variables and number of constraints required within the MIP formulation for mine
production sequencing. However, the author cannot further propose a heuristic algorithm to solve
the relaxed MIP model. Kumral and Dowd (2005) develop a simulated annealing (SA)
metaheuristic to deal with mine production sequencing. In their method, optimisation procedure
is carried out in two stages. In the first stage, Lagrangian relaxation is applied to obtain an initial
sub-optimal solution. Then, SA algorithm is implemented to improve the initial sub-optimal
solution further. However, it is hard to justify the correctness of this method because the detail of
constructing a feasible solution is not provided in the paper. Tolwinski and Underwood (1996)
propose a guided-search algorithm to find a path with maximum value in an acyclic direct graph.
Then, this so-called path-generation procedure is developed to determine the sequence of blocks
based on the value-based decision rule. However, solutions of large-size realistic instances may
be quite far away from optimality. Gershon (1987) discusses some heuristic rules that choose a
sequence of blocks through estimating positional weight of each block. However, the proposed
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heuristic rule is simple and the method of determining positional weights of blocks is not given in
the paper.
In summary, the main objective of mine production sequencing problems is to determine a

sequence of blocks that will be mined in periods, so as to maximise the net profits subject to a
variety of constraints imposed by mining system. Time dimension, which is an integral part and
key decision variable of scheduling problems, is not truly embedded in these sequencing
problems. Most researchers focus on developing the MIP models to formulate the problem and
then solve them exactly by commercial optimisation software such as ILOG CPLEX. However,
the size of a realistic open-pit mine can be made up of over millions of blocks thus resulting in
millions of variables and constraints to make MIP models impractical for use. Thus, recently
some researchers tend to develop LP-relaxation methods (e.g., aggregating the number of blocks
in a bin) in order to reduce the number of variables and constraints. However, the optimality
cannot be guaranteed any more after model relaxation. The others try to develop heuristic
algorithms to efficiently solve large-size instances. However, it is hard to justify to the
correctness and competitiveness of these heuristics due to the lack of algorithm details and
realistic examples on how to construct neighbourhood structures and obtain feasible solutions.
Another important issue is that there are no benchmark data and results of mine production
sequencing problems in the literature. As a result, it is hard to evaluate and justify these
approaches properly.
Underground Mining Production

For minerals that occur deep below the surface where the overburden is thick or the mineral
occurs as veins, underground mining methods are used to extract the valued material by
tunnelling into the earth. Underground mining techniques differ greatly from open-pit mining
and are classified according to the type of opening used to reach the minerals, i.e., drift (level
tunnel), slope (inclined tunnel) or shaft (vertical tunnel).
Kuchta, Newman and Topal (2004) apply MIP to optimise the operation of an underground ore
mine, LKAB’s Kiruna Mine, located in northern Sweden, which produces about 24 million tons
of iron ore yearly using sublevel caving method. The proposed MIP model aims at determine
which production blocks to mine and when to mine them to minimise deviations from monthly
planned production quantities while adhering to operational restrictions. However, because of the
large number of integer variables, solution times become unacceptably long for practical planning
purposes. Thus, they significantly reduce the number of variables and constraints to improve
model tractability. By developing a new database, they aggregate 12 production blocks into
single machine placement. A binary variable indicating whether a production block is mined in a
time period is replaced by the new binary variable indicating whether machine placement is
mined in that time period. Therefore for a five-year monthly horizon schedule, the number of
binary variables is decreased from 66,000 (60 time periods × 1,100 production blocks) to 3,600
(60 time periods × 60 machine placements). To extend their research, Newman and Kuchta
(2007) further publish their research results by giving more details of solution techniques for
multiple time periods underground mining production sequencing. They develop a heuristic-
based model, in which they aggregate time periods and then solve the original model using
information gained from the aggregated model. They compute a bound on the worst case
performance of this heuristic and demonstrate empirically that this procedure produces good
quality solutions for problem instances from the Kiruna mine. Moreover, Martinez and Newman
(2011) recently report the development of two new techniques to increase the tractability of the
MIP model proposed in Newman and Kuchta (2007), namely, i. eliminating variables by
assigning the earliest and latest start dates based on a so-called “Early Start Algorithm”; and ii.
developing an optimisation-based decomposition heuristic to plan ore extraction sequences.
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For better understanding, MIP models propopsed by Kuchta, Newman and Topal (2004),
Newman and Kuchta (2007), and Martinez and Newman (2011) for underground mine production
sequencing are briefly described as follows. The objective of these MIP models is to minimise
the deviations from the planned quantities of ore types over different time periods. Related to
characteristics of underground mining, the following main constraints are considered in this
model: production quantity of each ore type over each time period equals demand plus deviation;
vertical precedence relationships between production blocks are satisfied; horizontal precedence
relationships between left/right adjacent production blocks are satisfied; and the starting time of
each production block should fall within its given latest start time and earliest start time.
Some other papers are related to underground production sequencing problem. Weintraub et al.
(2008) propose extremely large MIP models for supporting decisions on sequencing the
extraction of material in a large underground mine. They develop Priori and Posteriori approach
to aggregate models based on clustering analysis using real-world data of the Chilean state mines.
Gershon and Murphy (1989) present a dynamic programming approach that optimises the cuts for
a single drillhole from which the underground ore qualities are evaluated in a mathematical way.
Lietaer (1977) describes the planning of an underground mine using linear programming in which
mining works and decision variables are discussed. However, these papers lack precise details of
mathematical formulations, solution techniques and computational experiments.
In summary, most published work on underground mine production sequencing are presented by
Kuchta et al. (2004), Newman and Kuchta (2007), Martinez and Newman (2011) and Weintraub
et al. (2008). However, the original MIP model is extremely large thus the aggregation,
decomposition and heuristic methods are applied to significantly reduce the number of variables
and constraints. This implies that the solution time is reduced and model tractability is improved;
however, the optimality performance of the original MIP model is sacrificed in the relaxation
procedure.
3.2 Coal Mining Production
In the literature, most mine production models are developed for ore (hard-rock) mining
industries. In comparison with ore mining, coal mining has specific and different requirements
and scenarios. Because coal deposits in sedimentary rocks are commonly layered and relatively
less hard, the coal mining methods used differ from those used to ore deposits. Thus, OR
techniques for coal mining production problems are investigated separately.
Guo et al. (2010) apply intelligent optimisation methods including genetic algorithm (GA),
particle swarm optimization (PSO) and modified particle swarm optimization (MPSO) to the
project scheduling of the first mining face of a coal mine in China. The process of optimisation
contains two parts: the first part obtains time parameters of each process and a network graph by
PERT (program evaluation and review technique) method based on the raw data; the second part
is to maximise the NPV based on the network graph and optimisation algorithms. Hindistan et al.
(2010) present a method for geostatistical coal quality control of an underground coal mine and
reveal the importance of geostatistical block modelling in short term mine planning. Mean
calorific values of the blocks inside the production panels are estimated for helping short term
planning of the coal production. The estimated calorific values are compared with those obtained
from actual production. Sarker (2009) applies MIP to model a real-world coal-blending problem
under different scenarios. The complexity of formulation and solution approaches, quality of
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solutions and solution implementation difficulties for these models are analysed and compared.
Sarin and West-Hansen (2005) present a MIP model as an aid for generating coal mine
production schedules in order to obtain the desired quality of coal and maximise the associated
NPV. The model is based on the definition of the mine layout as a precedence network with the
nodes representing mining sections. They implement Benders decomposition method to develop
an effective solution procedure. Halatchev and Kozan (2003) present a LP model for open-pit
coal production optimisation. They deal with the specific features of the exploitation of single
coal seam and utilisation of truck-shovel and dragline systems. Some features such as principles
of mine planning, coal quality optimisation and waste deferment are incorporated in the model.
Pendharkar and Rodger (2000) propose a nonlinear programming model for decision support in
coal mines. Production and transportation cost estimates are obtained from independent realistic
coal mines in Illinois, Virginia and Pennsylvania. Based on these estimates, a hypothetical model
is developed and tested for nonlinear optimisation. Sarker and Gunn (1997) develop a successive
linear programming (SLP) algorithm to solve a special class of nonlinear programming problems,
which arise in multi-period coal blending. They introduced a tactical coal blending problem and
discussed how nonlinearity arises in mathematical formulation of a multi-period problem. Under
many real-life mining constraints, the objective function is to maximise the revenue earned from
blended products minus the transportation costs, mining costs, blending costs and inventory costs.
Sarker and Gunn (1994) use a nonlinear programming approach to optimise coal bank scheduling.
The coals upgraded on the surface are aged at least four weeks in a bank before being supplied to
customers. Banks of different size are required for different lengths of time at different points in
time. The proposed approach could determine the proper location and size of banks so that the
total space requirement and bank movements could be significantly reduced. Magda (1994)
proposes a model for planning the extraction process in coal panels. The main idea of
mathematical model is based on the principle of the integration of elementary structural units
according to spatial, engineering and time structure of production process in long wall and
exploitation panels. Baker and Daellenbach (1984) propose a two-phase optimisation approach of
coal strategies at a power station in New Zealand. Phase 1 applies stochastic dynamic
programming approach to find optimal hydro operating strategies in terms of marginal fuel costs.
In Phase 2, hydro generating strategies are used as an input for stochastic simulation of coal
mining and stockpiling operations. Albach (1967) proposes a chance-constrained LP model for
planning a long-term and long-range open-pit coal mine in Germany. Based on the results
obtained by an iterative solution procedure, the mine planner could pick the optimum plan
according to its risk-preference function.
In summary, most coal mine production problems belong to planning rather than sequencing or
scheduling problems. Regarding the solution techniques, most researchers in this area apply
linear programming or nonlinear programming to optimise the coal mine production plans under
some specific constraints such as coal blending, coal quality, coal inventory and coal bank
movements.
4. Mine Transportation
In addition to mine design and mine production models, the optimistionof mine transportation has
recently been focused upon. In this section, mine transportation models are further partitioned in
accordance with fleet management, truck haulage and train scheduling.
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4.1 Fleet Management
Topal and Ramazan (2010) apply MIP to minimise maintenance cost of mining equipment such
as trucks over a multi-year time horizon. Using the real-world case of a gold mine in Western
Australia, the solutions obtained by MIP model can result in substantial cost saving, in
comparison with traditional approaches manually based on Excel spreadsheets. Beaulieu and
Gamache (2006) study the fleet management problem in underground mines. They develop a
model for the routing and scheduling bidirectional vehicles on a haulage network with one-lane
bidirectional road segments. The problem is solved using an enumeration algorithm based on
dynamic programming. Gamache et al. (2005) describe the problem of managing a fleet of load-
haul-dump (LHD) vehicles in an underground mine. The problem consists of dispatching,
routing and scheduling vehicles whenever they need to be assigned to a new task. A shortest-path
algorithm is developed to solve this fleet management problem.
4.2 Truck Haulage
Choi and Nieto (2011) propose a modified least-cost path algorithm for the optimal haulage
routing of off-road dump trucks in construction and mining sites. By improving the functionality
of A Google Earth, a new software application called Google Earth-based Optimal HAulage
RouTing System (GEOHARTS) is developed. The software demonstrates the capability in
supporting the truck haulage operations to an Indonesia coal mine. Souza et al. (2010) deal with
an operational mining problem regarding dynamic truck allocation. The material extracted by
shovels from the ore and waste rock pits is transported by trucks to crushers and waste dump
points respectively. The objective is to optimise mineral extraction in the mines by minimising
the number of mining trucks used to meet production goals and quality requirements. Because
the problem is strongly NP-hard, they present a hybrid algorithm that combines characteristics of
two metaheuristics to find the near-optimal solution. Using geographical information system
(GIS), Choi et al. (2009) develop a model that combines multi-criteria (speed, water body,
orebody, curve, visibility, haul road maintenance) evaluation and least cost path analysis to
determine the optimal haulage routes of dump trucks in large scale open-pit mines. The model
can also rate the adverse factor scores of truck movement using fuzzy membership functions. Ta
et al. (2005) solve the truck allocation problem for the mining industry by a chance-constrained
stochastic optimisation approach that can accommodate uncertain parameters such as truckload
and cycle time. The use of the model updater helps the truck allocation system to adapt to
random operational changes.
4.3 Train Scheduling
Abdekhodaee et al. (2004) consider that the coal rail network and coal terminal system are
tightly-coupled and with limited capacity. The authors also discuss the merits and disadvantages
of promoting coordination between the operational functions of these two systems. However,
they mention that their proposed mathematical programming models are quite complicated and
too difficult to be exactly solved. Embedded with a greedy constructive algorithm, they just
propose a metaheuristic algorithm “Greedy Randomized Adaptive Search Procedure” to optimise
a coal stockyard system. For other sub-systems especially about the optimisation of coal train
timetables, they only provide the simulation approaches to obtain the analytical results based on
three railing policies. Singh et al. (2009) report a decision-support tool to identify the capacity
requirements and to make effective capacity improvement in order to meet the demand while
minimising the total cost of infrastructure and demurrage, for the coal supply chain of Hunter
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13
Valley Coal Chain (HVCC) which is the largest coal export system in the world with total export
of more than 90 million tonnes of coal in 2009. They present the underlying mathematical
models implemented in this decision-support tool along with using simulation modelling and
approximation algorithms. However, they make many assumptions to simplify their models,
especially without considering the capacity constraints of the coal rail network. In addition, they
do not provide any approaches that can optimise coal train schedules. By utilising a “toolbox” of
standard well-solved standard train scheduling problems (Burdett and Kozan (2006, 2009, 2010);
Liu and Kozan (2009a-b, 2010, 2011a)), Liu and Kozan (2011b) model the coal train scheduling
problem as a Blocking Parallel-Machine Job-Shop Scheduling problem in a standard way. To
construct the feasible coal train schedules, an innovative constructive algorithm called the SLEK
algorithm is proposed. To optimise the coal train schedule, a three-stage hybrid algorithm called
the SLEK-BIH-TS algorithm is developed based on the definition of a sophisticated
neighbourhood structure under the mechanism of the Best-Insertion-Heuristic algorithm and Tabu
Search. A case study is performed for optimising a complex real-world coal rail system in
Australia. A method to calculate the lower bound of the makespan is proposed to evaluate
results. The results indicate that the proposed methodology is helpful to find the optimal or near-
optimal feasible train timetables of a coal rail system under network and terminal capacity
constraints.
In summary, most mine transportation problem aims at minimising the equipment cost (e.g.,
trucks, shovels, LHDs). The following three main solution techniques are implemented to find
the solution: shortest-path (least-cost path) algorithm, MIP model and heuristic algorithms.
However, transportation models should be tightly integrated with mine production problems to
achieve the overall efficiency improvement in a whole mining system. In addition, advanced
train scheduling models should be extended to deal with integrated ore supply chain systems.
5. Mine Evaluation
Mine evaluation is concerned with the applications of OR methodologies to mine industries by

considering a variety of long-term, long-range and strategic constraints such as economic,
financial, social, geostatistical, safety and environmental requirements. Mine evaluation models
are subdivided into the following four clusters: mining method selection; quality control;
financial risks; and environmental protection.
5.1 Mining Method Selection
Nicholas (1992) outlines techniques for determining feasible mining methods. Azadeh, Osanloo
and Ataei (2010) extend Nicholas technique in mining method selection (MMS) using analytic
hierarchy process (AHP). A two-step algorithm containing hierarchical technical operational
model and hierarchical economic model are proposed. Goodwin et al. (2008) study the
optimisation in the fields of mining, metal and mineral (MMM) processing. Several examples,
drawn from the authors’ experience in Automation and Control Engineering, have been used to
illustrate the interplay between modelling and solution strategies. They conclude that it is very
important to raise awareness to the selection of optimisation method as a key enabling technology
in the MMM field. Bascetin (2007) develops a decision support system using AHP for the
optimal environmental reclamation of an open-pit mine. Through the input of specialists from
different functional areas of the mining company, the group decision-making process can be
improved with a systematic and logical approach to access the priorities. In this paper, the
authors present the selection of an optimal reclamation method for an open-pit mine in Turkey
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using an AHP-based method.
5.2 Quality Control
Everett (2007) indicates that product quality of iron ore requires consistent composition in iron
and other minerals because iron ore needs to be railed to port, crushed to lump and fines,
stockpiled and shipped. A decision support system is proposed for the daily ore selection and
maintaining target composition. Ding et al. (2007) propose a method to define the production
scale of an underground mine. In the mining industry, the production scale of a mine operation is
usually defined as the production rate or the mine capacity. The authors argue that a
misconception of the production scale may cause misjudgement of the capacity, leading to serious
problems in the future mine operations. The paper also demonstrates how the production rate and
level influences mining operations, and how to determine the mine production scale. Godoy and
Dimitrakopoulos (2004) present a risk-based approach for the long-term production in an open-pit
mine, in which a model is developed by considering orebody uncertainty, waste management and
resource constraints. For mine planning and grade control, Houlding (1999) presents the “Direct
volume estimation”, a geostatistical technique for grade estimation of irregular volumes that has
primary application to mine planning and grade control.
5.3 Financial Risks
Li and Knights (2009) assert that commodity prices adversely affect the viability of some mining
projects, including leading to the possibility of bankruptcy for some companies. The price falls
reflect uncertainties and risks associated with mining projects. These uncertainties and risks are
associated with medium/short-term mining operations. Real options theory is applied to tactical
decisions of a case study involving financial uncertainties and risks. Akbari, Osanloo and Shirazi
(2009) point out that reserve estimation is a key to find the correct NPV in a mining project. The
most important factor in reserve estimation is the metal price. Metal price fluctuations in recent
years were exaggerated and imposed a high degree of uncertainty to the reserve estimation. By
considering the metal price uncertainty, they propose a real option method for reserve estimation
in an open-pit copper mine. Askari-Nasab and Awuah-Offei (2009) indicate that strategic mine
planning and management of the cash flows are a vital core of open-pit mining operations. The
hypothesis is investigated through a case study using the intelligent open-pit simulator founded on
agent-based learning theories. Asad (2007) proposes a new cut-off optimisation algorithm for
effective decision making procedure, which considers dynamic metal price and cost escalation
during mine life. The market plays a vital role in changing the economic parameters; therefore,
they may escalate during mine life. A copper deposit case study shows that, keeping the metal
price escalation at a minimum, the impact of mining and milling costs escalation is relatively
higher than refining and administrative costs. The proposed algorithm due to its flexibility allows
analysis of various options in the least possible time, which makes it valuable to mine planners in
decision making for major mining investments.
5.4 Environmental Protection
Badenhorst et al. (2011) present a method to achieve a hoist target at minimum energy cost within
various system constraints. The development of a discrete dynamic and a MIP model for a twin
rock winder system is presented and a branch-and-bound algorithm is applied. The results show a
possible 30.8% reduction in energy cost while approximately 6 hours of delays in the system
resulted in a mere 14% increase in energy cost. Lilic et al. (2010) propose an Artificial Intelligent
(AI) method to analyse surface coal mines. The global goal is subdivided into a hierarchical
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15
structure of subgoals where each subgoal can be viewed as the estimation of a set of parameters
(gas, dust, climate, noise, vibration, illumination, geotechnical hazard) which determine the
general mine safety state and mining environment. Peck and Sinding (2009) examine
environmental and social concerns addressed by mining companies. Increasingly seen as a
means, financial assurance is applied to ensure orderly, clean and lasting closure of mines. The
use of financial assurance, however, also raises some fundamental questions about how assurance
mechanisms influence mining operations and the relationship between mining operations and
their surroundings. Cortazar et al. (1998) present a model to invest in environmental technologies
which could turn out to be unprofitable in the event of a price fall. A comparative static analysis
predicts that firms in industries with high output price volatility would be more reluctant to invest
in environmental protection technologies and would be more willing to operate at low output
levels thus attaining low emission levels. Szwilski (1987) indicates that environmental protection
is being incorporated into the strategic planning. The objective is to optimise the utilisation of the
principal resources (e.g., capital, labour, technology and mineral reserves) and maximise the
strengths and opportunists of a mining company, while minimising its weakness and treats. His
research outlines the advantages of strategic planning for a mining company and the principal
factors which affect its profitability and survivability in business such as productivity and
environmental restrictions.
6. Mining Software
Golosinski and Bush (2000) address a comparison of open-pit design and scheduling techniques.
They mention that there are two mining software packages are commercially available for open-
pit mining: Whittle Four-X and Earthworks NPV Scheduler. In their analysis, Earthworks NPC
Scheduler is benchmarked against Whittle Four-X using a statistically designed experiment for
accuracy, optimality and technical practicality. The ultimate pits generated by both packages are
found to be essentially the same in value, size and shape. The optimal pits generated by
Earthworks NPV Scheduler tend to be smaller in size but similar in value to those generated by
Whittle Four-X. Brown et al. (1988) develop a modular computer-aided system to enable mine-
planning research into the application of many computer techniques such as databases, interactive
graphics, modelling simulation, environmental studies and the application of expert systems to
mine planning. They describe some of the concepts being employed in the development of this
software. Evans (1986) indicates that the computer played an important role in mine planning
and design. Computer systems are able to emulate existing planning techniques and perform
what were once difficult manual tasks. The author also briefly reviews computer system
modules, which include reserve estimation, layout evaluation and mine design, geological
modelling, financial modelling, equipment selection and geotechnics.
There are different types of mining software around the world. The following review only
examines four main Australian mining software solutions, which are used for visualisation,
integration, simulation and optimisation. The main advantages of mining software can be listed
as: i. to provide a decision-making environment that reflects the reality of mining operations; ii. to
connect mining data in different formats such as GIS, CAD and SQL; iii. to integrate models and
approaches of geology, design, planning, scheduling, statistics, optimisation and other functions;
and iv. give visual confirmation (animation or simulation) of each stage of the modelling process.
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16
6.1 Whittle Mining Software
Whittle mining software has been designed for mine optimisation, which enables significant
increases in project value over and above pit optimisation. The software incorporates the
strategic mine planning capabilities needed to achieve mine optimisation: strategic planning;
detailed cost, price and recovery modelling; stockpiles; multiple mines; blending; and cut-off
optimisation. Whittle mining software provides NPV Practical Push Backs module which address
both maximum NPV and minimum mining width requirements. It considers a few benches at
each pushback as a variable. It provides new methods for fast, effective push back creation that
enable practical schedules to become a standard part of the mine planning decision-making
process, allowing the full potential value of the deposit to be realised.
6.2 Datamine Mining Software
Datamine mining software starts by rethinking the block model. Most mines use models
comprised of two components: geological structure and metal grades, they are much more
sophisticated models that include geotechnical and geometallurgical parameters as well.
Therefore, Datamine develops new tools for what they call multi-parametric models. Datamine
has made changes to Datamine Studio block modelling and to NPV Scheduler. Customers see
optimised fragmentation profiles improve the loading rates of shovels at the face as well as
improve throughput times for ore in the mills. The first stage is to collect all the geotechnical
data in the mine into one database and then determine the location of the geotechnical domains
within the orebody. Once those have been established, sophisticated geostatistical techniques are
used to model orebody properties within the domains and add them to the multi-parametric
model. Inside Datamine mining software, there are some typical modules: i. blending method
that can automatically or manually determine the extraction required from selected mining blocks
to meet production target; ii. multiple destinations method that can set the storage and processing
capacity to define multiple rates for each destination; iii. stockpile management that assigns a
number of stockpiles which are available for reclaim; iv. haulage calculations that determine the
distances and speeds of trucks; and v. informative visual feedback that dynamically updates the
graphs and charts.
6.3 Runge Mining Software
Runge mining software uses Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) systems widespread. Whilst
predictable supply inputs have been successful in the use of ERP systems, mining operations are
different and have inherently unique characteristics. The planning components of ERP systems,
designed for other industries and deployed within a mining operation, are not suitable without
direct coupling and integration of spatial mining information. In order to achieve this level of
integration, Runge produces a methodology of the overall framework called “method and system
of integrated mine planning”, which provides solution for the following realistic issues: i. analysis
of multiple infrastructure scenarios by identifying critical paths and critical start dates in
development projects; ii. evaluating best shift schedules to meet demands; iii. simulating
development with both single and multiple goals; iv. finding the most cost effective way to
develop a mine and finding the optimal fleet size and best shift schedule; v. reducing bottlenecks
and equipment conflicts; and vi. determining the effectiveness of changing fleet size, either by
acquisition or removal of equipment.
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6.4 Blasor Mining Software
Stone et al. (2011) and Zuckerberg et al. (2011) report that a new mine planning optimisation
software tool called Blasor has been developed and implemented at BHP Billiton’s Yandi Joint
Venture operation in Pilbara. Blasor is specifically configured for designing and optimising the
long-term pit development plan for the multi-pit-blended-ore operation at Yandi. Blasor ensures
that all market tonnage, grade and impurity constraints are observed whilst maximising the net
discounted cash flow of the joint venture operation. The parameters used in Blasor to constrain
the optimisation of the multi-pit development plans include: i. constraints imposed by practical
mining slopes and rates; ii. capacity of downstream supply chain infrastructure; iii. market
tonnage, blended ore quality and grade constraints. Other limits to the real operation are: i. initial
stockpiles are allowed; ii. no material in the pits is designated as waste (only blended ore meets
all market grade and quality constraints); iii. mining and transport costs are attributed to each
block; iv. all material in the pits is allocated a bin number; v. the material is assumed to be of
homogeneous quality within each bin of an aggregation of blocks (AGG); vi. the extraction
precedence of each AGG is determined by extraction precedence of its constituent blocks; vii.
prices for both fines and lump material may be specified to change from year to year. In Blasor
mining software, the joint ore extraction and in-pit dumping optimisation procedure has three
principal steps: the first step attempts to determine the optimal ultimate pit limits for the blended
ore operation taken over all block models; the next step is phase design; and the third step is to
present the optimal AGG and bin extraction sequence.
6.5 Advantages and Shortcomings of Mining Software
With the help of mining software, mine planners have the robust range of decision making and
communication tools available to them. Thus, they can run multiple what-if scenarios to find the
best scheduling options and then watch and share animations that accurately represent what
mining plans/schedules look like, enabling the identification of potentially costly problems.
However, most of the current software solutions for the mining industry are based on manual
input, simulation techniques or animation techniques. Simulation is not an optimisation tool and
only analyses the properties of a system, synchronises the relationships of main operations and
provide approximate solutions of problems, which may well be sub-optimal in a severe sense.
For example, commercialised “off the shelf” 3D block models and mine production planning
models use simulation, however they are not published and scientifically justified by the eminent
researchers. Moreover, applications of complicated multi-stage scheduling techniques have not
been found for optimising the detailed schedules in the overall mining system.
7. Conclusions
In this paper, we present a comprehensive literature review and hieratical classification (i.e., mine
design, mine production, mine transportation and mine evaluation) of OR methodologies for
mining industries. We realise that recently there have been good review papers about mining
optimisation in the literature (see Newman et al, 2010). However, the structure of our paper is
fundamentally different from theirs and motivates researchers for improving models and
algorithms using recent operations research methodologies to solve more standard, sophisticated
and realistic models in an efficient and effective way. As an extention of this literature review,
we will conduct a detailed comparative study of MIP models applied to mining industries. In that
endeavour the fundamental mining optimisation problems should be identified, defined, modelled
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and analysed in a standard way. In addition, an interactive framework of short-term planning and
detailed scheduling is being proposed for optimising the operations from pits to crushers in ore
mining industry. Series of novel theoretical and practical resource-constrained multi-stage
scheduling models are being developed to improve the overall mining efficiency, because mining
managers need to tackle scheduling optimisation problems within different horizons with
different levels of detail. Advanced planning and scheduling optimisation methodologies can
help mining industry practitioners to greatly reduce infrastructure and equipment costs, improve
the production efficiency and maximise the net profits after mining. We foresee a trend in
developing more advanced scheduling optimisation methodologies so that mining industries will
implement them as a convenient and fundamental toolbox.
References

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21
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______________________________________________________________________________________
22
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______________________________________________________________________________________
23
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Operations research for mining: A classiﬁcation and literature review

Article · January 2011

Erhan Kozan Shi-Qiang (Samuel) Liu

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Operations Research for Mining: A Classification and Literature

Erhan Kozan and Shi Qiang Liu

In practice, an early task in mine management is the establishment of an accurate two-

Open-pit mine design

Fig. 2: A directed network flow graph for mine design

Mathematical formulation for the general open-pit mine design problem:

Underground mine design

Fig. 3: A network for underground mine design

Mathematical formulation for a generalised Steiner Tree network problem:

3.1 Ore Mining Production

In summary, the main objective of mine production sequencing problems is to determine a

Underground Mining Production

3.2 Coal Mining Production

4.2 Truck Haulage

4.3 Train Scheduling

Mine evaluation is concerned with the applications of OR methodologies to mine industries by

5.1 Mining Method Selection

5.2 Quality Control

5.3 Financial Risks

5.4 Environmental Protection

6.2 Datamine Mining Software

6.3 Runge Mining Software

6.5 Advantages and Shortcomings of Mining Software

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