Abstract
Mine planning is a very important process which is undertaken along the mine value chain. In an ideal setting, mine plans should be sufficiently robust to ensure that actual performance is as close to or the same as planned outcomes both in the short and long term. However, this is often not the case and in recent years financiers of mining projects have sometimes resorted to litigating against project proponents, claiming that they were misled into investing in projects that failed to deliver on promised outcomes. These challenges require that more research be undertaken on how robust mine plans can be generated and evaluated to reduce discrepancies between planned and actual outcomes. Accordingly, research findings towards closing the gap between planned and actual outcomes are presented based on lessons learnt from some of the mine planning related postgraduate research work that has recently been undertaken or is currently under way in the School of Mining Engineering at the University of the Witwatersrand.
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Acknowledgements
The author would like to acknowledge the M.Sc. and Ph.D. students under his supervision both in the past and at present, for their contributions towards mine planning related research work from which lessons shared in this paper are drawn.
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Musingwini, C. (2019). Lessons from Some Recent and Current Mine Planning Related Postgraduate Research Work at the University of the Witwatersrand. In: Widzyk-Capehart, E., Hekmat, A., Singhal, R. (eds) Proceedings of the 27th International Symposium on Mine Planning and Equipment Selection - MPES 2018. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-99220-4_1
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