A heuristic approach for scheduling activities with 'OR'-precedence constraints at an underground mine. Issue 10 (25th November 2020)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Nancel-Penard, Pierre; Morales, Nelson; Rojas, Valentina; González, Tomás
• Is Part Of: International journal of mining, reclamation and environment. Volume 34:Issue 10(2020)
• Page Start: 748
• Page End: 762
• Publication Date: 2020-11-25
• Subjects: Underground mine planning -- mixed-integer programming -- heuristic -- 'OR'-precedence constraints -- mine development; Mining engineering -- Periodicals; Mineral industries -- Environmental aspects -- Periodicals; Abandoned mined lands reclamation -- Periodicals; 622.292
• DOI: 10.1080/17480930.2020.1734152
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 1748-0930

Abstract

ABSTRACT: Medium-term development planning of underground mines requires scheduling multiple activities to comply with long-term milestones, and to obtain a time span as short as possible. However, the planning must also respect the availability of construction resources and precedence constraints, which in our case can be disjunctive, that is with more than one alternative predecessor. In this paper, we present an optimisation model to find the schedule of minimum length, satisfying all the constraints mentioned. We develop a heuristic approach to solve it and show that it can be used to produce feasible development plans in a real mine.