Application of Computers and Operations Research in the Mineral Industry –

Dessureault, Ganguli, Kecojevic & Dwyer (eds)

© 2005 Taylor & Francis Group, London, ISBN 04 1537 449 9

Integrating uncertainty in block cave production scheduling

E. Rubio & W.S. Dunbar

University of British Columbia, Vancouver Canada

ABSTRACT: The long term plan in a block cave mine is based upon a number of assumptions about the
behavior of the rock mass. Production forecasts will rely on these assumptions even when data is available to
suggest modifications to those assumptions. This can compromise not only the economics of the project but
also the global geomechanical stability of the mine. Even though there might be several goals that a production
schedule of a block cave mine could follow, at the moment, there is no tool to measure how precisely those goals
are met. Reliability theory introduces a new metric to production schedules which ultimately will measure the
ability of different production strategies to achieve production targets. In this approach the reliability of a draw
point can be computed using historical forecasts versus historical production data. The individual draw point
reliabilities can then be linked though a set of equations to compute the overall block cave reliability. This aims to
provide a different means to schedule block cave mines adding an index of uncertainty to the overall production
schedule as well as the factors that contribute to it. Several examples will be presented as a proof of concept.

1 INTRODUCTION a successful mine plan in this paper is the means to

Historically, production schedules in Block Caving
operations have been computed using heuristic meth-
ods learned over the years during the operation of the
mine. Some research on planning or scheduling block
cave operations has focused on the use of operations
research tools to allocate resources such as equip-
ment and labor (Rubio, Scoble and Dunbar, 2001)
or to minimize costs or maximize net present value
(Smith and Rahal, 2001; Rahal et al, 2003). There is
no published record of the regular application of such
methods in a block caving operation. Recently, opera-
tions research tools have been introduced to facilitate
the planning methodology either on the short term
planning (Chanda, 1990) or the long term planning
(Guest et al, 2000) activities of the mine. Neverthe-
less, there is still a need to introduce algorithms that are
able to adapt to the dynamic conditions of an under-
ground mine. One of the main problems that block
cave mines are facing at the moment is the lack of
integration of operational information into the con-
struction of production schedules. There have been
a few attempts to integrate uncertainty models into
operations research models stochastical programming
methods (Smith, 1999) have not been able to provide
an easy way of integrating the variance of the rock
mass models into the mine planning system. It is clear
that the success of a production plan will depend upon
the ability of the mine planning system to incorporate
uncertainty found in rock mass behaviour and in the
mining system. The understanding of what constitutes
be able to forecast the correct amount of resources
needed to achieve a desired production target. Opera-
tions research tools in mine planning tend to be limited
to strategic mine planning or long term production
schedules that do not incorporate the degree of detail
needed at the operational levels.
Reliability systems theory has been extensively
used in mechanical engineering to compute mainte-
nance plans and derive operational decisions. One of
the advantages of this methodology is that it can inte-
grate all the operational components of a production
system, incorporating the failure rate of the com-
ponents as part of the forecasted availability of the
production system as a whole.As an analogy, this could
be implemented in a mine that is composed out of dif-
ferent processes in which every one of the components
has a different failure rate.
This paper aims to demonstrate the ability of reli-
ability models to integrate operational information in
the estimation of the best production strategy.
2 CAVING METHODS AND UNCERTAINTY
MODELS
Block caving has gained increased popularity in recent
year due to its ability to produce large tonnages at
low operating cost. However, there are several issues
that add considerable uncertainty to the mining method
such as: caveability in competent and highly stressed
ore bodies (De Nicola and Fishwick, 2000); seismicity

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Copyright © 2005 Taylor & Francis Group plc, London, UK

 due the presence of high stresses that could adversely Observed tons Planned Tons

affect the mining method (Dunlop and Gaete, 1995);

1.40

stress redistribution due to a particular draw strategy; 1.20

Tonnage Millions tons

ultimate fragmentation that may have been poorly esti- 1.00

mated for the rock mass; lack of precision in estimating 0.80

the grade distribution within the ore body; and dilution 0.60

or the manner in which waste is included in the caved 0.40

rock mass as it moves toward the draw points (Dolipas 0.20

2000). Inadequate recognition and understanding of -

these issues can lead to disruption of production per-

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formance. However, it has been observed that some

block cave operations perform better than others when
facing these uncertainties. It seems that the amount of
planning and its ability to integrate the above men-
tioned issues plays a significant role in the success of
a block caving operation.
3 PLANNING AND SCHEDULING METHODS
APPLIED TO CAVING METHODS
In order to ensure that the ore production rate meets
requirements and to efficiently allocate resources such
as capital, equipment and labor, a block cave mine plan
and schedule must be defined. The aspects of mine
planning that need to be fully considered to properly
plan a block cave mine are as follows:
• Draw point sequence: i.e. the order and timing by
which the draw points should be incorporated in
production.
• Active area: i.e. the number of draw points that
should be developed per period.
• Draw rate: i.e. how fast can material be extracted
from these draw points to provide the best value to
the operations.
• Draw constraints: i.e. identification of the main
operational constraints that limit the productivity of
a draw point.
• Draw profile: i.e. what should be the distribution
of tonnages within an active panel to guaranty the
global stability of the mine.
• Geotechnical constraints: i.e. how does the draw
profile affect the geomechanical response of the
rock mass.
The above factors are linked through several pro-
duction rules that traditionally have been derived
from heuristics and experience at different operations.
Figure 1 shows an operating mine that has successfully
forecast its production ramp-up as a result of using the
factors above and the appropriate heuristic rules.
Currently, when a production plan is computed then
all draw points have the same chance of being part
of the schedule. However, in every block cave opera-
tion there are draw points that tend to produce more
easily than others or the productivity of draw points
varies across the active area. This variance in draw
N
Period
Figure 1. Production back-analysis of an existent operation.
point productivity clearly reflects the uncertainty in
predicting rock mass behavior to plan the production
associated with a particular schedule.
Production from a draw point depends on several
rock mass and design parameters such as: equipment
size, layout configuration, stresses on the production
tunnels, haulage infrastructure, seismic activity. One
of the most relevant parameters, however, appears to be
the ultimate fragmentation of the rock mass. Fragmen-
tation models such as BCF developed by Esterhuinzen
(1994), Brown (2003) and Wang et al (2003) could be
used to estimate the fragmentation curve of a given
rock type and thus forecast the frequency of oversize
and hang ups occurring at draw points. These frag-
mentations models will finally affect the draw point
productivity. However, current practice is to employ a
trial and error process until full production is achieved
without introducing the interruptions that the sec-
ondary blasting activity adds to the production system.
Generally by adding the secondary blasting activity
then the productivity of a block or a production unit
decreases and therefore the time to achieve full produc-
tion is usually longer than planned. The impact of this
situation on the economics of the mine is significant.
Fragmentation models are also used to define other
aspects of the design and planning of a block cave
mine, such as: draw point layouts (Laubscher, 1994);
mixing within the caved zone; amount of secondary
blasting activity (Dessureault, Scoble, Rubio, 2000).
There is a lack of published work dealing with the rela-
tionship of fragmentation to production scheduling.
Fragmentation tends to vary across the active area due
to factors such as discontinuity frequency, rock mass
strength, and other geomechanical factors such as the
stresses acting in the rock mass. In turn, the stresses
are related to rock mass properties, the rate of draw,
the draw pattern and the location of draw points as
the operation proceeds. These relationships are com-
plex and are likely to be site-dependent. Thus it seems
clear that a robust production planning tool should
be empirically based and should integrate available
production data with measured geomechanical data,

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Copyright © 2005 Taylor & Francis Group plc, London, UK

 12000 90%
80%

Relative Tonnage Deviation

10000 Under
Planned Tonnage

70%
Pull
8000 60%

50%
6000
40%
4000 30%
Over 20%
2000
Pull 10%
0
0%
0 2000 4000 6000 8000 10000 12000

01 01F
03 01F

03 02F
05 01F
05 02F
07 01F
07 02F
09 01F
09 02F

11 01F
11 02F
13 01F
13 02F
15 01F
15 02F

17 01F
17 02F
19 01F
19 02F
21 02F
Observed Tonnage
Draw Point Name
Figure 2. One month of tonnage reconciliation per draw
point. Figure 3. Monthly average relative deviations between
forecast and actual tonnages.

such as: deformation, stress indicators, fragmentation

data, and rock mass properties.
4 UNCERTAINTY IN BLOCK CAVE
PRODUCTION PLANNING
The difference between forecast and actual production
of a draw point could be used as a measure of the
reliability of the draw point to produce ore. Figure 2
compares one month of production between forecast
and actual tonnage taken from the same operation as
shown in Figure 1. Note that even though the global
tonnage forecasted has been fulfilled, the distribution
of tonnage per period across the active area has not
been achieved. This tonnage variance leads to two well
known operational problems: Under Pulling and Over
Pulling. Under pulling means that the actual tonnage
is less than the forecast for the draw point and over
pulling means that the draw point has exceeded its
planned tonnage.
It is generally accepted that under pull and over pull
behaviour leads to early dilution entry, over induced
stresses, and increased discrepancies between planned
and operational performance. Therefore it seems clear
that production plans need to be based on a draw point
by draw point basis; otherwise imprecise analysis can
place at risk the life and economic return of the mine.
Figure 3 shows the monthly average relative devia-
tion between forecast and actual tonnages drawn from
40 draw points during a 36 month period at an actual
mine. It demonstrates that draw points can vary con-
siderably in the precision of estimating production
performance. It also demonstrates the need for produc-
tion planning to integrate a new way of quantifying the
historical production variance between forecast and
actual. Then this variance could be used to correct the
future forecast or even better help to study the relation-
ship between this deviation and rock mass properties.
This paper now will introduce this concept through
a method that computes a reliability parameter as a
measure of production variance.
The reliability of a production plan is computed as
a function of the individual draw point reliability. The
reliability of a draw point is computed as another prop-
erty of a draw point, alongside grade, dilution, draw
rate, as follows:
Draw points i = 1 . . . I , Periods j = 1 . . . J
j
T αi , actual tonnage drawn from draw point i in
period j
j
T βi , planned tonnage to be drawn from draw point i
in period j
over a deviation K of the plan with respect to the actual
tonnage drawn. Finally the reliability of the draw point
is computed as:
Tables 1 and 2 show a production plan and the actual
tonnages drawn from four of the 40 draw points showed
in Figure 3. Table 3 shows the relative deviation
between forecast and actual tonnages.
The reliability of a draw point will be evaluated by
assuming that a 50% or less average monthly relative
tonnage deviation is acceptable. Then the reliability
index is computed as the percentage of the time that
a draw point has been reliable during its life. Thus
the reliability index of draw point 09 01H would be
¾ = 75%, since the deviations in March, April and
May were less than 50%. The reliability of the selected
four draw points is shown in Table 4.

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Copyright © 2005 Taylor & Francis Group plc, London, UK

 Table 1. Production forecast for four draw points. 01 02F 02 03F 03 02H 13 01F
0.8

Planned tons Mar-98 Apr-98 May-98 Jun-98 0.7

0.6

Tonnage Reliability
09 01H 1500 2500 3500 3000 0.5

09 02F 1500 3000 5000 0.4

09 02H 1000 2500 0.3

11 01F 1200 1900 0.2

0.1

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Table 2. Actual tonnage drawn.

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Period

Actual tons Mar-98 Apr-98 May-98 Jun-98

Figure 5. Change of reliability index with time for different
09 01H 1800 3500 2500 500 draw points.
09 02F 3000 4500 5500
09 02H 2500 2400 As more observations are made, then the reliability
11 01F 1350 2150 index can be recomputed. Figure 5 shows the change of
the reliability index with time for four draw points cho-
sen from the 40 draw points of Figure 3.This shows that
Table 3. Relative tonnage deviation: actual versus forecast. the reliability index cannot be assumed to be indepen-
dent of time and therefore an adjustment of the index
Deviation Mar-98 Apr-98 May-98 Jun-98 will be necessary to develop long term schedules.
The next step in developing the application of the
09 01H 0.20 0.40 0.29 0.83
09 02F 1.00 0.50 0.10
reliability theory to block cave planning is to assemble
09 02H 1.50 0.04 the individual draw point reliabilities into the block
11 01F 0.13 0.13 cave reliability.

Table 4. Draw point reliability.

5 RELIABILITY AS MEANS OF
UNCERTAINTY
Draw point Reliability (%)
The reliability of the system relates to the probability
09 01H 75 of an entire system failing, based on the knowledge
09 02F 67 of the failure distribution associated with the system’s
09 02H 50 component (Kaufmann et al, 1977). Reliability the-
11 01F 100 ory has been used extensively to analyze mechanical
systems, even the process of ants foraging (Herbers,
1981). In order to compute the reliability of the system,
0.8 it is first necessary to map its component processes.
0.7 The relationships between these processes also need to
Tonnage Reliability

0.6
be established. Then an analogy with electric circuits
0.5
0.4
is used to compute the system reliability. For example,
0.3 the reliability of two dependant processes is computed
0.2 as if these two processes were connected in series. The
0.1 same applies for two independent processes in which
0
the reliability is computed as if the processes were con-
F

nected in parallel. Figure 6 shows a few different kinds

01

01

02

01

02

01

02
01

02

01

02

01

02
01

05

07

11

13

17

19
03

05

09

11

15

17

Draw Point Name of process connections, Herbers (1981), as follows:

Figure 4. Reliability index of draw points in figure 1. 1. in series

2. in parallel
3. parallel–series
Applying the same concept to the data shown in 4. in series–parallel
Figure 3 it is possible to see in Figure 4 that there is
a variation of reliability within the active panel. Con- Each of the above would have a different formula
sequently for the next monthly forecast there will be to compute the overall system reliability.
more confidence in predicting draw point 13 02F than Consider a mine with three production panels. Each
01 01F in achieving the production target. panel has an ore pass and several draw points linked

638

Copyright © 2005 Taylor & Francis Group plc, London, UK

 Table 5. Production area reliability by panel for different
cases.

Panel 1 Panel 2 Panel 3 System R

Base case 0.799 0.794 0.768 0.487

Case 1 0.797 0.794 0.768 0.486
Case 2 0.799 0.794 0.72 0.456
Figure 6. Processes connections presented by Herbers
(1981).
Table 6. System reliability for a new draw point
in panel 1 (shown in bold).
OP1 OP2 OP3
Ore Passes Panel 1 Panel 2 Panel 3

ROPi 0.8 0.8 0.8

D31
RDi1 0.8 0.8 0.8
D11 D21
RDi2 0.8 0.8 0.5
RDi3 0.8 0.8
RDi4 0.8
D12 D22 D32
RDi5 0.8
RPi 0.8 0.79 0.72
System R = 0.46
D13 D23

D14
Panel 1 Panel 2 Panel 3
Figure 7. Representation of a block cave mine.
to it, as shown in Figure 7. Each of the panels has to
produce an equal tonnage at any given period to main-
tain the uniform draw pattern in order to avoid early
dilution as well as high stresses in the production area.
The ore passes, numbered from 1 to 3, and draw
points are indexed according to position with respect to
ore pass and draw point, e.g. Dij would be the jth draw
point in ore pass i. Draw points in the same panel will
be in parallel and in series with the ore pass. Therefore
the reliability of a panel is given by:
where RPi is the reliability of panel i, ROPi is the
reliability of ore pass i, and RDij is the reliability of the
jth draw point located on panel i. J (i) is the number
of draw points in panel i. Since the three panels in
Figure 7 operate in series, then the reliability of the
system shown is given by:
The base case scenario will consist of having the
same reliability for all elements equal to 0.8, i.e.
ROPi = RDij = 0.8 for all i and j. Then the system
reliability would be R = 0.487. Now consider two
cases:
Case 1: Suppose that the reliability of any draw
point in panel 1 decreases to 0.5 due to poor draw
control and operational factors. Then the reliability of
the production area would be R = 0.486 (See Table 5),
not a significant difference from the base case.
Case 2: If instead the reliability of any draw point
in panel 3 (the cave front) decreases to 0.5, then the
reliability of the entire system would be R = 0.456.
This is an interesting result; since the reliability model
suggests that it is more important to keep draw points
at the cave front in proper operation rather than old
draw points to enhance the performance of the produc-
tion area.
The reliability model could also be used to help
decide where to open a new draw point by showing
in which way the system becomes more reliable. For
example, consider Case 2 above where there is a draw
point in the cave front with low reliability and it is
desired to open a new draw point (with reliability 0.8)
so that the entire production area becomes more reli-
able. Suppose also that operational constraints in panel
2 mean that the new draw point can only be located in
panels 1 or 3. The calculation of the system reliability
for both these scenarios is shown in Tables 6 and 7
respectively.
The results in Tables 6 and 7 show that the effect
of opening a new draw point at the cave front is much
greater than opening it at the back of the active area.
This is because the contribution of the extra draw point
in panel 3 to the overall reliability is much larger than
in panel 1.

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Copyright © 2005 Taylor & Francis Group plc, London, UK

 Table 7. System reliability for a new draw point
in panel 3 (shown in bold).
Panel 1 Panel 2 Panel 3
ROPi 0.8 0.8 0.8
RDi1 0.8 0.8 0.8
RDi2 0.8 0.8 0.5
RDi3 0.8 0.8 0.8
RDi4 0.8
RDi5
RPi 0.8 0.79 0.78
System R = 0.50
However, a new draw point in the cave front will
lead to increased stresses at the corners of the active
area, possibly damaging the rock mass and affect-
ing fragmentation at other draw points. This could
render production from other draw points difficult or
impossible, even though the reliability model suggests
otherwise. This clearly illustrates the need to inte-
grate the reliability model with geomechanical factors.
Moreover, since geomechanical data are measured
during operations, these relationships should account
for the observed time variation in production reliabil-
ity, thus providing a physical basis for adjustment of
the draw point reliability.
In addition to constraints imposed by geomechan-
ical factors, there may also be operational constraints
on the development and operation of draw points such
as equipment availability and logistics associated with
draw point development. These issues are more related
to short term planning but could also affect the reliabil-
ity of the entire production system. During production
from a panel, it is common for the fragments in one
or more draw points to become so large that a “hang-
up” occurs. Production from the draw points may still
proceed, however, at a lower reliability. If production
stops, then caving still occurs but this induces poten-
tially damaging stresses onto the adjacent draw points,
thus affecting production from the panel in the long
term.
Development of a realistic and robust production
planning model for block caving operations is a chal-
lenging task. The issues and factors described above
should also be included in such a model.
6 K OUT N MODEL USED TO INTRODUCE
FLEXIBILITY IN THE PRODUCTION
SCHEDULE
At the moment we have reviewed the application of
reliability theory to assess the uncertainty on a given
production plan. A different view of this theory can
assist mine planners to decide upon the flexibility
640
Copyright © 2005 Taylor & Francis Group plc, London, UK
needed in the mine plan to reach a given produc-
tion target. The whole concept is based on planning
the redundancy of the system. In this particular case
redundancy is introduced on the number of draw points
that are included as part of the production plan. From
Figure 7 we can see that the whole mine production
should come from ore pass 1, 2 and 3. In other words
every one of the panels as a target depending on the
spread of the total target, in particular, every panel
would have a call equal to 33% of the total target.
Then we need to decide how many draw points are
going to be part of the schedule to fulfill that 33%. For
example if the target for the panel is 4000 tpd and the
maximum draw point yield is 500 tpd then at least 8
draw points are needed to reach the target. However, it
is known that draw points fail due to secondary blast-
ing activities and repairs. Therefore having a plan that
consists of just 8 draw points will not reach the panel
target (4000 tpd). Consequently “extra” draw points
need to be added to the plan to overcome this problem.
The traditionally solution for this problem has been to
decrease artificially the draw point yield to increase the
flexibility of the system (deWolfe, 1981). The problem
with this approach is that the updated draw rate breaks
rules of the long term plan, eventually impacting the
reliability of the plan, which has been reviewed in the
previous chapter of this paper. The introduction of the k
out of n method provides a statistical tool to compute
the flexibility needed in the system as a function of the
target and the individual draw point failure rates.
The k component of the system is the minimum
number of draw points required to achieve the target.
Taking the above example this would be 8 draw points.
Now the idea is to increase the number of draw points
to n and compute the reliability of the system based
on the binomial distribution as follows:
Where:
R(Pt ) is the reliability of panel t
nt is the number of draw points included in the
schedule for panel t
k is the minimum number of draw points to
achieve the target of panel t
ρ is the reliability of the draw points in panel t
By introducing the above formulation on the current
scheduling methodology the chart shown in Figure 8
can be derived. This representation of the scheduling
says that the amount of draw points to be included in
the daily or weekly call should depend on the requested
system reliability and the tonnage target for the panel.
For example if 80% is the reliability cut off, then to
produce 3000 tpd just 8 draw points would be needed.
 110%
100%
90%
Panel Reliability (R(Pt))
80%
70%
3000 tpd
60%
50%
5000 tpd
40%
30%
20%
10%
0%
0 5 10
Number of Dpts in the Schedule ( nt)
Figure 8. Draw point scheduling using k out of n method.
Instead if 5000 tpd are requested 13 draw points would
be needed to achieve the target with 80% probability.
This method changes the concept of planning by
introducing the operational upsets as part of the
scheduling process. The fact that target tons are linked
with mine plan reliability makes mine planners think
about tons and plan compliance as a whole. The
number of draw points to include in the schedule
is a function of the secondary blasting activities, by
optimizing secondary blasting more draw points may
become available to be included in the schedule. The
factor n-k is a measure of flexibility, this index could
be optimized to make the production schedule realistic
and cost wise.
The above formulation assumes that the reliability
per draw point is constant across the panel. This is not
true and needs to be adjusted using automated search.
The next step in the research would be to represent the
block cave mining system as a process manufacturing.
Then every one of the components of the system would
be analyzed using reliability theory.
7 CONCLUSIONS
Even though current production scheduling methods
may forecast the global tonnage to be mined per
period accurately, there is often exists a significant ton-
nage variance between forecast and actual production
on a draw point by draw point basis. This variance
generally results from inadequate integration of the
fundamental models that sustain the planning of a
block cave operation and also the inability to deal with
operational data.
Reliability theory has been studied as a means to
allow mine planners to account for the actual produc-
tion performance as part of the mine planning system.
Also, reliability theory provides a way to analyze the
weakest link within a mine plan from a process point
Copyright © 2005 Taylor & Francis Group plc, London, UK
of view. There is a need to integrate the more funda-
mental process models and field monitoring data to
improve the precision of production scheduling.
K out of n models can assists mine planners to com-
pute the required mine flexibility to achieve a given
target. Also this technique allows mine operations to
integrate the operational upsets as part of the mine
planning methodology.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
15 20 25
The authors are grateful to Gemcom Software Interna-
tional Inc. for time and funding to complete the work
and submit this paper.
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