Abstract
Scheduling the extraction and the production in an open-pit mine with the goal of maximizing the net present value of the operation has been accomplished to date using various approaches including the use of mixed integer linear programming techniques. Since realistic models could have very large number of variables and constraints, the combinatorial optimization problem of finding an optimal, or at least, good feasible extraction schedule maximizing profit is computationally complex and difficult. It is also challenging to confirm whether various algorithms are addressing the same problem and are based on the same assumptions. The publication of MineLib, a library of test problem instances for open-pit mine production scheduling problems, namely the Constrained Pit Limit Problem (CPIT) and the Precedence Constrained Production Scheduling Problem (PCPSP), has provided new ways to address the scheduling in open-pit mines. In this paper, a full-binary formulation for PCPSP is proposed. The application of a sliding time window heuristic combined with a block preselection procedure to maximize the net present value in open-pit mines is tested on 10 PCPSP instances from MineLib library showing significant improvements over the previously reported results. In addition, the current state of the MineLib library, showing the best-known results for CPIT and PCPSP, is described for completion.
Keywords
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution.
Buying options
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Learn about institutional subscriptionsReferences
Chiles, J., Delfiner, P.: Geostatistics: modeling spatial uncertainty, vol. 497. Wiley, Hoboken (2009)
Espinoza, D., Goycoolea, M., Moreno, E., Newman, A.: Minelib: a library of open pit mining problems. Ann. Oper. Res. 206(1), 93–114 (2013)
Hochbaum, D.: The pseudoflow algorithm: a new algorithm for the maximum-flow problem. Oper. Res. 56(4), 992–1009 (2008)
Hochbaum, D., Orlin, J.: Simplifications and speedups of the pseudoflow algorithm. Networks 61(1), 40–57 (2013)
Lerchs, H., Grossmann, I.F.: Optimum design of open-pit mines. Trans. Can. Inst. Min. 68(1), 17–24 (1965)
Chicoisne, R., Espinoza, D., Goycoolea, M., Moreno, E., Rubio, E.: A new algorithm for the open-pit mine production scheduling problem. Oper. Res. 60(3), 517–528 (2012)
Lamghari, A., Dimitrakopoulos, R., Ferland, J.: A hybrid method based on linear programming and variable neighborhood descent for scheduling production in open-pit mines. J. Glob. Optim. 63(3), 555–582 (2015)
Jélvez, E., Morales, N., Nancel-Penard, P., Peypouquet, J., Reyes, P.: Aggregation heuristic for the open-pit block scheduling problem. Eur. J. Oper. Res. 249(3), 1169–1177 (2016)
Liu, S., Kozan, E.: New graph-based algorithms to efficiently solve large scale open pit mining optimisation problems. Expert Syst. Appl. 43, 59–65 (2016)
Samavati, M., Essam, D., Nehring, M., Sarker, R.: A methodology for the large scale multi-period precedence-constrained knapsack problem: an application in the mining industry. Int. J. Prod. Econ. 193, 12–20 (2017)
Samavati, M., Essam, D., Nehring, M., Sarker, R.: A new methodology for the open-pit mine production scheduling problem. Omega (2017b) In press
Bienstock, D., Zuckerberg, M.: Solving LP relaxations of large-scale precedence constrained problems. In: Proceedings of the International Conference on Integer Programming and Combinatorial Optimization, pp. 1–14. Springer, Heidelberg (2010)
Kenny, A., Li, X., Ernst, A., Thiruvady, D.: Towards solving large-scale precedence constrained production scheduling problems in mining. In: Proceedings of the Genetic and Evolutionary Computation Conference, pp. 1137–1144. ACM, New York (2017)
Jélvez, E., Morales, N., Nancel-Penard, P., Cornillier, F.: A New Hybrid Heuristic for the Precedence Constrained Production Scheduling Problem: A Mining Application. Submitted paper
Acknowledgements
The authors acknowledge the support of CONICYT Basal Project FB0809—AMTC, Universidad de Chile.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2019 Springer Nature Switzerland AG
About this paper
Cite this paper
Jélvez, E., Morales, N., Nancel-Penard, P. (2019). Open-Pit Mine Production Scheduling: Improvements to MineLib Library Problems. 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_18
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-99220-4_18
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-319-99219-8
Online ISBN: 978-3-319-99220-4
eBook Packages: Earth and Environmental ScienceEarth and Environmental Science (R0)