A comparison of open pit design and scheduling techniques

ABSTRACT

Two competing software packages are commercially available for open pit production scheduling: Whittle Four-X and Earthworks NPVScheduler. In this study NPVScheduler was benchmarked against the Four-X using a statistically designed experiment for accuracy, optimality and technical practicality. The ultimate pits generated by both packages were found to be essentially the same in value, size and shape. The optimal pits generated by NPVScheduler tended to be smaller in size but similar in value to those generated by Four-X.

KEYWORDS:

• Open pit mining
• mine scheduling
• mine planning
• pit limits
• scheduling software