Integration of mathematical models for ore mining industry

ABSTRACT

This paper investigates the integration of planning and scheduling theory for open-pit ore mining industry under comprehensive mining constraints and attributes. Consequently, mine design planning, mine block sequencing and mine production scheduling problems are modelled, solved, interacted and integrated in a whole system. A series of interrelated mixed integer programming models and hybrid solution approaches are developed. Based on a real-world case study, it is validated that the integration of mathematical models is promising to significantly improve the overall efficiency of mining management in an analytical way.

KEYWORDS:

• Integrated mining optimisation
• mine design planning
• mine block sequencing
• mine production scheduling
• mixed integer programming

ABBREVIATIONS:

• MDP: mine design planning at the strategic level
• MBS: mine block sequencing at the tactical level
• MPS: mine production scheduling at the operational level
• MIP: mixed integer programming

Acknowledgements

The authors would like to acknowledge the partial support of CRC ORE, established and supported by the Australian Government's Cooperative Research Centres Programme.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Shi Qiang Liu

Shi Qiang (Samuel) Liu is currently a professor in the School of Transportation & Logistics at Southwest Jiaotong University in China. He is also the Min Jiang Scholar (the title of a distinguished Adjunct Professor) in the School of Economics & Management at Fuzhou University in China. He was working in Australia for over 12 years (2005–2017) as a senior research scientist in CRC ORE (Australian Government's Cooperative Research Centre for Optimising Resource Extraction) and a research fellow in Decision Science Discipline at Queensland University of Technology, Brisbane, Australia. He was awarded the PhD degree (in Operations Research) with the Dean's Award for Academic Excellence from the School of Mathematical Sciences at Queensland University of Technology in 2009. Due to his academic contributions, he was awarded the New Outstanding Researcher Medal by the Australian Society for Operations Research. He worked as a design engineer and software engineer in Singapore for three years (2002–2005). He obtained the Master degree in Industrial & Systems Engineering from National University of Singapore (2000–2002). He also obtained one Master degree (in Engineering Thermophysics) and two Bachelor degrees (in Thermal Engineering and Economics) from Harbin Institute of Technology (one of top 9 universities in China) in six years (1993–1999). He has over 40 refereed papers, most of which were published in leading SCI-indexed journals including Transportation Science (the foremost journal in Transportation), Decision Support Systems, International Journal of Production Economics, Expert Systems with Applications, Computers & Operations Research, Computers & Industrial Engineering, Journal of Heuristics, Engineering Optimisation, Journal of the Operational Research Society, Flexible Services & Manufacturing Journal, Optimisation Letters, Advances in Engineering Software, Asia-Pacific Journal of Operational Research, etc. He has solid background in operations research, decision science, combinatorial optimisation, train scheduling, machine scheduling, mine scheduling, hospital scheduling, robotics scheduling, network flow algorithms, and metaheuristics.

Erhan Kozan

Erhan Kozan is an adjunct professor of operations research in the School of Mathematical Science, Queensland University of Technology and an honorary professor in the Sustainable Minerals Institute, University of Queensland, Australia. He has had over 40 years industrial, managerial, teaching, and research experience in the areas of operations research. He has acted as a principal investigator for over 20 competitive national and international research grants since 1996 in the area of health, finance, mining, car and truck production, railways, seaports transportation, logistics, and supply chain. He is the author of a book, ten software and over 200 refereed papers, most of which were published in leading SCI-indexed journals. He is the editor/associate editor of five journals and works as a referee of over 40 international journals. He has supervised over 35 postgraduate research students. He is the former president of the Asia Pacific Industrial Engineering and Management Society (APIEMS) and Australian Society for Operations Research (ASOR). He is an expert in disciplinary research across decision science and scheduling theory. His current research focuses on the area of healthcare process optimisation, train scheduling, and mine optimisation