We're excited to share a new MineSched scheduling tip from @AC, GEOVIA Industry Process Expert.
MineSched has always led the market with its long-term scheduling abilities. This is due to the fact that it was developed with long-term tactical scheduling in mind whereas most other tactical schedulers tried to solve short-term scheduling and have tried to push into the long term. As the requirements for long-term tactical scheduling are different from short-term tactical scheduling, MineSched has struggled to be effective in the short term space and likewise, other software has struggled to be effective in the long term space. This challenge was addressed and fixed in the MineSched 2022 release where you can now schedule for all time horizons.
What was holding MineSched back from being an effective short term scheduler?
The main issue with all versions of MineSched prior to 2022 was that you had to break your locations into the smallest component to have the necessary control for scheduling all mining and related activities. This forced users to go from having 1 location with many polygons or solids in it to having potentially hundreds of locations with each location representing a single flitch in one blast polygon. This meant your location canvas could become cluttered (See below) and managing the rules associated with all these locations was difficult.
Location setup in versions prior to 2022
Production rates data grid in versions prior to 2022. Many rows to control equipment.
What’s changed in MineSched 2022?
MineSched 2022 allows the grouping of locations into “Collections”. This change allows material movement and production rate rules to be simplified. Not only that, but MineSched also allows the user to assign Metadata into polygons and Solids using Surpac’s SDM format that can be read directly in MineSched. We can now assign a location name, mining direction and mining priority, directly to the blast location.
With clever use of some simple macro’s in Surpac, (although not needed) we can import our locations and be scheduling in a couple of clicks.
Locations setup in 2022 with collection PIT_A
Double-clicking on the collections reveals the solids or polygons that comprise the collection.
Production rate rules are kept to a minimum.
Mining is controlled either by priorities or precedences. (depending on what you are trying to achieve) With priorities already entered as metadata in the SDM file, nothing else needs to be done.
Want to change the order of mining? No problem. Just switch up the priorities.
Halfway through a blast location when scheduling?
When short term scheduling, it is necessary to start scheduling runs with equipment already working in the blast locations. For example, Mining is 60% complete in a location. We can account for that easily with “Production Progress tracking”.
This also applies to any activities we are scheduling (GC Drilling, Production Drilling, Charging, Blasting, etc).
Summary
There are many other great features in MineSched 2022 for Short term scheduling;
- Factor mining rates by material type
- Factor drilling speed by material type
- Limit the amount of equipment that can work in a location (i.e. only two drill rigs)
- Factor drill rates when multiple pieces of equipment are working in one location (i.e 90%)
- Utilise CSV files for all quantities of work required. (i.e. Drill metres, charging KG’s, Blasting required)
- Mine by precedence or priorities
- Automatically assign ancillary activities priorities based on mining requirements (Support the mining sequence)
- Reworked GANTT charts to track resources
- Fully customisable charts and reports to track KPI’s
- Access to the 3DEXPERIENCE platform to democratise scheduling data, charts and animations
All of this is available with a single role meaning you can schedule all time horizons (long term, medium-term and short-term) with the purchase of a single license which is a great value. Save the GEOVIA User Community to your browser and visit again for more tips and tricks.
For more best practices, visit the wiki page:
