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109 Wilke
109 Wilke
APCOM 87. P rocccd in g...~ of the Twentieth Internat ional Symposium on the Applica tion of Computers and
Mathematics in the Mineral Industries. Volume I: Mining. Johannesburg, SA IMM. 1987. pp. 109 - 113.
The use o f operations research techniq ues and computer models has become
entr.enched in the mining industry, particularly in the area of mine planning.
The paper considers three major areas where increasing efforts are likely
to be directed in the future: the integration of multiple disciplines in a single
model.; the decentralization of computing capacity within a structured network;
a nd the incorpora tion of sophisticated techn i que~ such as compu ter aided
design and artiticial intelligence.
Introduction
During the last few years operations research methods • reflecting the com plex. multidimensi.onal structure of
and computer models have become widely accepted tools mining problems by combining different 0. R. tech-
and almost standard procedures to tackle techno-econo- niques within one model;
mic questionti in the mining industry. 'Computers in mine • providing decentralized capacity locally which is simul-
planning and operations' was not only one o f the main taneously an integral part of a structured network;
topics a t the last (13th) World Mining Congress held at • incorporating CAD/C AWCIM techniques and ele-
Stockholm/ Sweden in June 1987, but in addition a great ments of Artificial intelligence.
number of papers given on the other subjects, if not the These emerging ideas inevitably affect the organizational
majority, dealt with computer and O. R. methods. Corn· structure of the mine and/or the company; hence it is
puters and quantitative methods are playing an impor- worthwhile to think about where these developments are
t ant role in both mine planning and operation, and com- head ing or where (hey should lead.
paring this situation with the first attempts of computing
in the mining industry back. in the early 1960s the pro-
blems can be regarded as being quite considerable.
Reflecting the com plex, multidimensional
Looking at the picture methodologically, however, this structure of mining problems within one
progress turns out to be not really so marked: Stochastic model
s imulation has been the bread-and-butter method since It is commonplace to state that mining is a complex and
t he very beginn ing of computerized problem solving in multidimensional process, but in effect ma ny of the com-
the mining business, and still is except for very rare puterized models used 10 represent this mining process
examples of successful applications of graph-theory, linear are linear in nature or only two- or three-dimensional,
and dynamic programming, ·etc. These (simulation) and mostly cover only one or a few o f the different
models grew bigger and became more complicated as time aspects. Many typical mining problems and their respec-
passed (and the easy-to-handle tasks such as 'optimizing' tive models could be used as examples to clarify this state-
transport systems were studied sufficiently), along with ment; long-term production scheduling is just one of
the increase in storage capacity and computational speed them.
of the main frames, from the methodological point of Regardless whether it is open pit or underground
view, however, there was very little new development or mining, long·term production scheduling always means
breakthrough. answering the question: Which part o f the deposit should
Only ver y recently have attempts been made to intro- be mined at what period of time in order to reach the
duce new concepts to problem solving in mining, which economical target as soon as possible? Clearly, scheduling
trend in my opinion is overdue. There are three different takes into account geological and technical consideration
aspects, which deserve even more attention in the future, and at the same tim e pays attention to probabilities -
namely: a complex problem. even when considering a very small