Modeling the integrated mine-to-client supply chain: a survey

ABSTRACT

Mining is an important economic activity and a highly complex industry. As such, it demands a complex supply chain to connect mines to clients, often involving railways, ports and long-distance maritime shipping. State-of-the-art optimization tools are an invaluable asset to help manage such a complex environment, which makes mining industry a very fertile ground for operational research applications. This paper aims to present a bibliographical review of published works involving operational research applications in the mining industry. We start by mapping applications within each isolated link of the chain. Then, we make inroads into the researches involving and connecting multiple links of the mining chain. Finally, we present summaries of our finding and pinpoint some directions for research opportunities in the mining industry.

KEYWORDS:

• Mining industry
• supply chain
• operational research
• optimization
• bibliographic review

Acknowledgments

The authors would like to thank the Carlos Chagas Filho Foundation for Research Support ofthe State of Rio de Janeiro, FAPERJ, for supporting the research by means of Grant no. E-26/202.789/2015. This work was partially supported by the National Council for Scientific and Technological Development - CNPq, under grants #311075/2018-5 and #305180/2016-9. This study was financed in part by the Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior - Brasil(CAPES) - Finance Code 001.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Fundação Carlos Chagas Filho de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado do Rio de Janeiro, FAPERJ [E-26/202.789/2015]; Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico, CNPq [#311075/2018-5 and #305180/2016-9]; Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior – Brasil (CAPES) [Finance Code 001].