An integrated steering approach to improve a phosphate supply chain efficiency

ABSTRACT

This paper presents and illustrates an original application of the redesign in the real context of a mining supply chain producing phosphate rock. One of the major challenges is to successfully produce the final products required by the customers, from raw materials whose chemical composition and availability depend on the extraction program and method. Redesign of the mining supply chain consists of considering the impact of extraction, processing, and blending stages in achieving target objectives. The proposed approach, based on a mixed integer linear programming model, allows moving from fixed production flows to dynamic ones by adopting a flexible and reactive management mode that fully satisfies customer requirements at minimum production costs. Numerical results obtained using real data, corresponding to the infrastructure and order books, illustrate (i) the flexibility, quality, and horizontal alignment ensured by our approach and (ii) the impact of the extraction method on the ability of the SC to fulfil the orders book with more efficiency.

KEYWORDS:

• Redesign
• alternative routings
• blending
• mining supply chain
• steering

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1. Bone Phosphate of Lime: the chemical component characterising the richness of phosphate rock in P₂O₅.

2. The quality charter is classically based on several components: BPL, SiO₂, MgO, Cd, Al₂O₅, Fe₂O₅, CO₂, etc.

3. Mixed-Integer Linear Programming model.