SURFACE PRODUCTION SCHEDULING:

IMPROVING THE SCHEDULE

Version 7.00
January 11

Gemcom Software International Inc. Tel +1 604.684.6550

1066 West Hastings Street, Suite 1100 Fax +1 604.684.3541
Vancouver, BC Canada V6E 3X1 www.gemcomsupport.com
Copyright © 2011 Gemcom Software International. All rights reserved.
Gemcom Software International publishes this documentation for the sole use of MineSched licenses.
Without written permission you may not sell, reproduce, store in a retrieval system, or transmit any part of
the documentation. For such permission, or to obtain extra copies please contact your local Gemcom
Office.
Gemcom Software International
Level 8 190 St Georges Terrace
Perth, Western Australia 6000
Telephone: (08) 94201383
Fax: (08) 94201350
While every precaution has been taken in the preparation of this manual, we assume no responsibility for
errors or omissions. Neither is any liability assumed for damage resulting from the use of the information
contained herein.
All brand and product names are trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective companies.

Contributors
Aaron Loffler
Gemcom Software International
Perth, Western Australia

Products
MineSched 7.0
Surpac 6.1.4

Document Release Date

January 2011
 Table of Contents
Overview ...................................................................................................................................4
Data storage and familiarization..............................................................................................6
Task: Setup data management hierarchy.............................................................................................. 6
Task: Set your working directory ........................................................................................................... 6
Data review ............................................................................................................................................... 6

MineSched scenario management ........................................................................................ 12

Opening a scenario ................................................................................................................................ 12
Task: Create a scenario....................................................................................................................... 12

Fill locations ...........................................................................................................................15

Task: Add the model that will be used for filling .................................................................................. 15
Task: Change the waste stockpile to use the two waste dumps ......................................................... 16
Task: Identify the problems with this schedule .................................................................................... 22

Make the schedule more practical......................................................................................... 23

Mining direction ...................................................................................................................................... 23
Task: Investigate the different mining directions ................................................................................. 23
Precedences ........................................................................................................................................... 26
VERTICAL_LAG .................................................................................................................................. 27
HORIZONTAL_LAG ............................................................................................................................ 29
MAXIMUM_LAG_DISTANCE .............................................................................................................. 30
BLOCKS_IN_SEQUENCE .................................................................................................................. 31
Parameters ............................................................................................................................................. 32
SWELL_FACTOR ................................................................................................................................ 32
MAX_BENCHES_PER_PERIOD ........................................................................................................ 35
MAX_BENCH_DROP_PER_PERIOD ................................................................................................. 36
MAX_ACTIVE_BENCHES................................................................................................................... 36
MAX_ACTIVE_LOCATIONS ............................................................................................................... 38
BLOCK_FACTOR ................................................................................................................................ 39
Production rate modifiers ........................................................................................................................ 40
CAPFACT ............................................................................................................................................ 40
NOMAVAIL .......................................................................................................................................... 41
PRODFACT ......................................................................................................................................... 42
PRODFACT_ATTRIBUTES................................................................................................................. 43

Haulage and TKM calculations .............................................................................................. 44

Adding Haulage to the schedule ............................................................................................................ 44
Task: Create haulage route strings ..................................................................................................... 44
Reporting TKM........................................................................................................................................ 52
Task: Create detailed haulage reports ................................................................................................ 52
Task: Create a custom TKM report ..................................................................................................... 53

More graphical outputs .......................................................................................................... 55

Bench plans ............................................................................................................................................ 55
End of period surfaces ............................................................................................................................ 56

Where to next?........................................................................................................................58

Page 3 of 58
Overview
Surface production scheduling can be challenging because there are many options available for moving
resources around to various locations of the excavation at short notice. The schedule is usually designed
to achieve a constant production rate, target grade at a process point or points, or combinations of both.
This tutorial is designed to give beginners a working knowledge of surface production scheduling in
MineSched without complex scheduling scenarios. This tutorial also provides a brief exploration of the
concepts within MineSched used to make a schedule more practical.
This tutorial is an extension of the surface scheduling setup tutorial, the material movement tutorial, and
the targeting and blending tutorial. It covers many of the parameters used in MineSched to turn a
mathematically successful schedule into a practical schedule for mining.
Subsequent tutorials in this series will extend the schedule further by looking at options available for
turning a life of mine schedule into a short-term polygon sequenced and activity schedule.

Requirements
This tutorial assumes that you have a reasonably advanced knowledge of Surpac. If you are a new
Surpac user, you should go through the Introduction to Surpac, Block Modeling, and the Mine Design
tutorials before proceeding with this tutorial.
This tutorial is the fourth in a series of tutorials designed to teach the common functionality within the
MineSched Production Module. The results of this tutorial will be used to complete the next tutorial.
To complete this tutorial, you need to have an understanding of surface scheduling techniques.
Additionally, you must have completed and understood the concepts in the Surface Production
Schedule: Initialisation, the Surface Production Schedule: Material Movement, and the Surface
Production: Targeting and Blending tutorials prior to attempting this tutorial.
You will also need:

• Surpac V6.1.4 or higher installed on your computer

• MineSched V7.0 installed into your version of Surpac
• the data set accompanying this tutorial (you can use the data you finished with from the previous
tutorial or new data is supplied with this tutorial)

Objectives
The objective of this tutorial is to give you a basic understanding of how to setup a surface production
schedule and report on it. This tutorial focuses on the parameters used in scheduling to make the
schedule more practical for mining. It is not intended to be exhaustive in scope, but will show the
workflows needed to achieve results. You can then refine and add to these workflows to meet your
specific scheduling requirements.

Page 4 of 58
 Table of Contents

Workflow

Page 5 of 58
 Table of Contents

Data storage and familiarization

There are four basic data requirements for completing the MineSched surface production schedule:

• pit designs, dump designs, and topography. These are normally as DTMs. However, scheduling
can also be done with Whittle shells.
• a block model containing grades and material class definitions and a block model for the dump
designs.
• any data files created to complete the previous tutorial in this series.
• the scenario file from the previous tutorial.
Many files are also created during the scheduling process, such as reports, parameter files, log files, and
animation files. Because so many files are created, it is important to manage your data so that you can
easily locate, access, and analyse it.
Some of the parameter options within MineSched allow you to store filenames using a relative path or an
absolute path. Using a relative path means that the schedule data will be transportable between various
data storage systems and that it can be operated from several different locations. This makes it very
important to store your data logically to facilitate this functionality as well as assisting other users to
understand and locate your data.

Task: Setup data management hierarchy

Unzip the tutorial data. The files required for scheduling are already contained in their designated
directory.

• The dtm folder contains the dump, pit and topography dtms and string files.
• The mdl folder contains the block models.
• The polygons folder will contain various string files created for scheduling.
• The Scenario folder will contain files for managing the MineSched production scenarios.
If you have your own files you can copy the files to the directory structure, or you can create the directory
structure yourself as shown below.

Task: Set your working directory

Change your working directory to the newly created Scenario folder. You may need to refresh the
Surpac Navigator to see the changes made in Windows Explorer.

Data review
The data was also reviewed in the previous tutorial; however, it is shown here again for reference.
1. Open the files pit_design1.dtm and pit_stage_a1.dtm.
2. Using DTM properties, change the colour of the stage A pit.

Page 6 of 58
 Table of Contents

The files show a final pit design and an initial stage A for this pit. The Stage A subpit is developed
first to quickly establish cash flow for the project then the remainder of the pit is mined.
3. Open the block model and display it.
4. Run a block model summary.

Page 7 of 58
 Table of Contents

The block model contains four attributes.

Attribute Description

grade The quality value of the commodity.

material The MineSched material class attribute.
Sg The specific gravity or density of the block.
type The rock type, air, oxide, transition, or fresh.
5. Cancel the form when finished.
6. Graphically constrain the block model to show only the blocks where the grade > 1.

Page 8 of 58
 Table of Contents

7. To get an indication of grade distribution, colour the model by the grade attribute. Select a cutoff
range that corresponds to the mining grade ranges selected for profitability.

Grade Range Description

<1 Waste
1 to 3 Low Grade
>3 High Grade

Page 9 of 58
Table of Contents

Page 10 of 58
 Table of Contents

8. In this tutorial, you will also look at creating fill locations with waste dumps. In the dtm folder drag
the two dump design dtms and the pit and topo dtm.
Initially it will look like the two dump designs overlap. However, when the constraining surface of
the pit_and_topo.dtm file is applied, you can see that their bases do not overlap. Colour the dtms
to illustrate this.

There is also a block model in the mdl folder that has been created to represent the volume that
needs filling in the waste dumps. While not necessary, a material attribute has been added with a
value of 99 for one waste dump and a value of 100 for the other waste dump. The data could be
presented with the block models if required.

Page 11 of 58
 Table of Contents

MineSched scenario management

MinSched provides you with the ability to create and manage many scenarios related to the same data.
Scenarios are typically slight variations of the scheduling parameters for the same dataset. This may
include a comparison between using one type of equipment to another or re-assigning the sequence of
mining.
You can access the scenarios through Surpac interface or through the MineSched interface. However, it
is best practice to have a single directory to store your scenario files. You can then store multiple
scenarios in this directory. This allows you to keep file references the same between scenarios. You only
need to change the parameters that are applicable to method of scheduling.
When running MineSched, each scenario will create its own Results folder, which will also be stored
under the Scenario folder. Each scenario stores a separate Results folder, so there will be no
overwriting of files relevant to each scenario.
Through this scheduling process, you will produce several scenarios as you build the schedule up to a
complete functional schedule.

Opening a scenario
For every schedule, there must be at least one scenario file.

Task: Create a scenario

1. In Surpac make sure your current working directory is set to the Scenario folder.
2. Choose MineSched > Open.

The Scenario History window will open. This window shows all the scenarios that have recently
been modified, separated by tabs into scenarios that have been opened on the system and
scenarios that have been opened in the current working directory.

Page 12 of 58
 Table of Contents

3. Select or browse for the Surface Production Targeting and Blending 1 scenario file and apply
the form.
MineSched will open the scenario with the last screen that was presented when the scenario was
previously saved. In this case, it was the Location section of the Setup Schedule step.

4. Make a second copy as a new scenario so you can keep the previous scenario unedited in case
you need to return to it later. Choose Scenario > Save As.

Page 13 of 58
 Table of Contents

5. Save the scenario as Surface_Production_Life_of_Mine_1.minesched.

6. The new scenario is ready to for use. MineSched has made a copy of the Results folder to
maintain the data structure for each individual scenario.

Page 14 of 58
 Table of Contents

Fill locations
You can configure MineSched to use fill locations. A fill location is a location that has a fixed, defined
volume that can be modelled by a block model. Fill locations are useful when the location may not always
be available or when the details of where material is placed is required.
You can use fill locations to model in pit filling which may be constrained by when material is mined from
the mining location. Fill locations are the final destination for material. Once material is placed on a fill
location it cannot then be moved to another location of any type.

Task: Add the model that will be used for filling

A block model is required to define the available volume of the location that is to be filled with material.
MineSched does not require any material classes or qualities associated with a model that will be used
for filling as only the available volume is extracted from the block model.

Tip: The block model used for filling can be the same as the block model used for mining. This is usually the case in
a backfill operation where material is preferentially returned to the location from which it was mined, if there is
room to do so. For that case, a separate model is not required for fill locations.

As these fill locations lie outside the existing mining block model, a second model must be defined.
1. Connect the dump model to the scenario by adding it to the list of available models in MineSched.

Page 15 of 58
 Table of Contents

2. Adjust the properties of the model as shown below. An attribute has been added to be able to
define the material class in this section. The density value can remain as a constant value of 1.0 as
only the volume to fill is required.

3. A material attribute has been added to the model. However, you do not need to assign material
classes in the material classes grid. They are only used for mining location and they have been
defined in the fill model, in case, in the future, sections of the waste dump need to be reclaimed.

Task: Change the waste stockpile to use the two waste dumps
1. Delete the existing WASTE_DUMP stockpile. This will also delete the material movement rules that
direct material to the stockpile location.

Page 16 of 58
 Table of Contents

2. Drag a fill location onto the Canvas. This will create a location. Change the name of the location to
SOUTH_DUMP.

Page 17 of 58
 Table of Contents

3. You must define the properties of this fill location, which includes selecting the correct model,
defining the constraints, and assigning an appropriate filling method as shown below.

4. When dumping to the waste dump, you want to minimise the distance the trucks need to travel.
You can do this by defining a mining direction that radiates out from a fixed coordinate on each
bench.
Usually, this coordinate is the point where the ramp intersects the bench. In MineSched, you can
do this with a string. A string file exists for this, or you can create your own. Check the string in
Graphics in Surpac and assign it to the location as shown below.

Page 18 of 58
 Table of Contents

5. Add the NORTH_DUMP location, and define the properties in a similar manner.

6. Add the material movement rules that send the WASTE material class to the two waste dumps. In
this schedule, it is desirable to send WASTE to the SOUTH_DUMP and only after it is full, you will
want to send the WASTE to the NORTH_DUMP. This is done by using the SOUTH_DUMP as a
Precedence to the NORTH_DUMP in the Date/Event field.

7. Before you can create the schedule, you need to make some changes to the mining capacities and
targets that were applicable to the use of a stockpile.
8. In the resource capacities panel, the resource materials did not include the WASTE material. This
means that the WASTE material does not contribute to the overall capacity of the resource.

Page 19 of 58
 Table of Contents

The WASTE material must contribute towards the resource capacity as the volume of the material
is required to calculate the amount that is sent to the fill location. Change the Resource Capacity to
use all materials, and adjust the MAX_RATE to account for the new capacity.

9. The Material Ratio Target still includes the WASTE_DUMP stockpile location in the ratio target.
Change this to include the new fill locations.

Page 20 of 58
 Table of Contents

10. Create the schedule, produce the graphical results, and review the animation.

Page 21 of 58
 Table of Contents

Task: Identify the problems with this schedule

You can see three major issues with this schedule:
1. Two waste dumps are being laid out in a method that may not be all together possible. That is
multiple benches have been scheduled to be deposited at the same time, which is likely to cause
problems to the sequence and availability of trucking.
In many cases, it is possible to maintain multiple benches; however, in this case, you will look at
restricting MineSched to depositing the waste dumps one bench at a time.
2. During some periods, the mining in the pit is more selective than bulk. Because the block size in
this schedule is 25 x 25, this represents a problem since mining individual blocks and then moving
to the other end of the pit to mine a single block is not practical.
As you can see in the image above in some cases there are too many benches active in one
period.
3. The waste dumps are completely filled before the schedule ends. There is more waste in the
mining locations; however, the waste dumps are full. This problem will get worse when you take
into account the SWELL of the in-situ material.
All these issues are related to making the schedule more practical.

Page 22 of 58
 Table of Contents

Make the schedule more practical

MineSched has many parameters to assist you in making the schedule more practical. Some of the
parameters are considered precedences because they control when blocks become available in the
schedule, while others are parameters that restrict the way that the blocks are mined or specific changes
to attributes of the blocks.
The addition of precedences and parameters restrict the number of available blocks at any given time
and will, therefore, restrict MineSched’s ability to meet the defined targets.
In this section, you will look at many of these precedences and parameters and how they affect the
schedule. Adding these parameters will make the schedule more practical, but a practical schedule will
come at the expense of meeting the targets.
Some of the precedences and parameters are not applicable to this mining scenario. This tutorial will only
provide explanations for precedences and parameters that are not applicable. For most of the options,
you will add them to the scenario and create the schedule to discern if the results improve the schedule
or make it worse.

Mining direction
The mining direction is the most influential option in MineSched that you can change to make the
schedule more practical. When you set the mining direction to None, the mining schedule has the most
flexibility in meeting the defined targets; however, this option is the least practical. By setting the mining
direction, you can determine if the schedule is capable of meeting the defined targets.

Task: Investigate the different mining directions

Many of the mining directions are constant. For example:

• North starts the mining in the southerly most block and mines towards the north. This is similar
with East, South, West, and Azimuth, where you can define the direction as a bearing between 0
and 360.
• D-Field is used when mining by polygon, and the direction (north, south, east, west or an azimuth)
is stored in one of the description fields of the polygon. This allows the mining direction to vary by
polygon and is very useful in strip mining applications.
• Radial or All are useful in practical surface mining.

Page 23 of 58
 Table of Contents

♦ Radial starts at the coordinates of the starting position. You can define the starting position
by a set of coordinates, a string file, or at the northerly, southerly, easterly, or westerly most
point in the location.
MineSched then mines the blocks radially from the starting position. That is, the closest
blocks to the start position will be mined until the period is complete. For example, the image
below shows radial mining where the mining start point is in the middle of the location and
there are no quality or material ratio targets defined:

Page 24 of 58
 Table of Contents

♦ All starts at the coordinates of the starting position. You can define the starting by a set of
coordinates, a string file, or at the northerly, southerly, easterly, or westerly most point in the
location.
MineSched then mines the blocks equally out in all of the cardinal directions from there until
the period is complete. For example, the image below shows mining in all directions where
the start point is in the middle of the location and there are no quality or material ratio targets
defined:

Try the different mining directions and see the results of the targets.
1. Set the mining direction for both locations to be Radial, and define the start coordinates using a
string file. There are two string files in the polygons directory that store points for each of the
stages start coordinates on each of their benches.

2. Create the schedule, create the graphical results, and review the animation. The mining sequence
looks much better as the blocks are grouped together better; however, there are still too many
benches being mined at once.

Page 25 of 58
 Table of Contents

3. Review the results in the dashboard.

4. The schedule is still able to meet the targets at the MILL due to the blending from the stockpiles.
This means that even with the change in mining direction, adequate amounts of ore material are
being mined to facilitate the blending at the process.

Precedences
Mining precedences control when blocks become available based on the mining of other blocks.
Precedences can be either inter-locational or intra-locational. The precedences that you will look at in this
tutorial are VERTICAL_LAG, HORIZONTAL_LAG, MAXIMUM_LAG and BLOCKS_IN_SEQUENCE.
There are other precedences available in the MineSched list (GROUPS_IN_DEFINED_SEQUENCE and
BLOCK_PRECEDENCES_CONSTRAINED_BY_GROUP). These precedences apply to the mining
method of polygons or solids. The next tutorial will explain these precedences where short-term mining
options are explored.

Page 26 of 58
 Table of Contents

VERTICAL_LAG
Valid Values – zero or any number greater than zero. The number is in the same units in which
Surpac is defined. If Surpac is working in imperial units then 100 will be 100 feet. If Surpac is
working in metric units 100 will be 100 metres.
Vertical lag controls the distance that the bench face in the benches above must be away from the face
on the next bench. In other words, before a block on one bench can be mined, how many blocks on the
bench above must be mined before the block is available.

The Vertical Lag parameters instruct MineSched on how to proceed with removing blocks while
maintaining a working face for the blocks above. In the example above, a block on the next bench may
not be mined until blocks on the current bench up to a distance of 100 units from the block below have
been mined.
This can be seen in the diagram below. This is a long section in the mining direction, illustrating that the
red block cannot be removed until 100 units have been removed from above and 100 units from above
that.

You can apply the Vertical Lag in all directions, or in specific cardinal directions of north, south, east, and
west.
By default, MineSched sets the lag distance to one block size.

Page 27 of 58
 Table of Contents

In 3D, you can view the same diagram above as follows:

It makes sense that the vertical lag be specified in integer multiples of the block size. The vertical lag is
measures from block centroid to block centroid. For instance, if the mining block size is 20m and you
enter a Vertical Lag of 67m, then this will be three blocks that will be included in the lag, the excess 7m
does not reach the next centroid so the fourth block is not included in the lag calculations.
1. Add a Vertical Lag in All Directions of 100m for the mining locations only, and create the schedule.
2. View both the animation and the dashboard results.

3. The block sequence looks even more practical. Due to the length of the VERTICAL_LAG you have
specified, MineSched has reduced the number of benches that can be mined at one time. In some
cases, it is still too many.

Page 28 of 58
 Table of Contents

4. The results are still good as there is still sufficient material being mined to maintain the stockpiles.

HORIZONTAL_LAG
Valid Values – zero or any number greater than zero. The number is in the same units in which
Surpac is defined. If Surpac is working in imperial units then 100 will be 100 feet. If Surpac is
working in metric units 100 will be 100 metres.
Horizontal Lag works in much the same manner as Vertical Lag. However, instead of being applied to
blocks above and below, Horizontal Lag applies to blocks on the same elevation across the mining
direction.

Page 29 of 58
 Table of Contents

In the example below, a Horizontal Lag has been set such that its value is 1 block width. To remove the
red block, first all of the magenta blocks must be removed.

Horizontal Lag may be applied in all azimuth directions and in specific cardinal directions of north, south,
east, and west.
1. Add a HORIZONTAL_LAG in all directions in the mining locations, and set it to a value of zero.

2. Create the schedule, create the graphical results, and view the animation. As you can see, it is
possible to chase the ore on a bench; however, often this is not practical.

3. Set the HORIZONTAL_LAG to 50. This will prevent the tunneling on a bench.

MAXIMUM_LAG_DISTANCE
Valid Values – any positive number that is greater than zero and at least the value of the
VERTICAL_LAG plus at least two block sizes. This is explained below.
The use of a MAXIMUM_LAG_DISTANCE is not applicable to this scenario.

Page 30 of 58
 Table of Contents

It is commonly used when mining a layered deposit. If a resource is mining overburden above an ore
seam and the overburden “pinches” to be very narrow, if the mining rate stays the same then the
overburden may race away from the active ore mining face which may not be practical. You can negate
the effect by setting a MAXIMUM_LAG_DISTANCE such that an upper location cannot race too far
ahead of a lower location.

In the image above, as the overburden gets thinner the ore gets thicker so the overburden will race ahead
as at the same production rate will advance the face faster in the overburden but slower in the ore.
Below is an example of setting the MAXIMUM_LAG_DISTANCE. It is not necessary to set this in the
tutorial as it will have no effect.

If you specify a maximum lag that equals the minimum vertical lag, this would create circular block
references and if MineSched allowed this, no mining would occur in the location.
For example, this would mean Block A has to be mined before Block B, and Block B has to be mined
before Block A. Neither of these could ever get satisfied; and therefore, no mining would occur. For this
reason, MineSched ignores maximum lag distances that are less than or equal to the minimum vertical
lag distance in the direction opposite to the mining direction. If you enter a maximum lag distance that is
less than or equal to the vertical lag distance, MineSched will warn you and then ignore the maximum lag
distance parameter.
In general, you should set the maximum lag distance o at least the minimum vertical lag distance plus two
block sizes in the mining direction. If it is set to a distance less than this, the resources mining on the
upper and lower benches will likely be under utilised.
If different resources were mining the different benches, each resource would continually be starting and
stopping while waiting for the other resource to complete a block. To avoid this, if the minimum lag
distance has not been set, the maximum lag distance should be set to three times the block size or
greater.
MAXIMUM_LAG_DISTANCE is not applicable to fill locations. When you select a fill location in the
locations field, this precedence is filtered out of the list.

BLOCKS_IN_SEQUENCE
Valid Values – ‘yes’ or ‘no’.
BLOCKS_IN_SEQUENCE is not applicable to this schedule.
The default value of BLOCKS_IN_SEQUENCE depends on whether you have selected Consolidate
Blocks or not.

Page 31 of 58
 Table of Contents

• If you select Consolidate Blocks, the value of BLOCKS_IN_SEQUENCE is set to yes. MineSched
is constrained to mine the blocks in the way the blocks were prepared, that is by bench and from
south to north.
• If you do not select Consolidate Blocks, the value of BLOCKS_IN_SEQUENCE is set to no. This
provides MineSched with the flexibility to choose blocks to meet the defined targets.
This parameter is rarely used as the default setting is generally correct.
This precedence is usually set to no when long or medium term scheduling, and set to yes when short
term scheduling.
1. Set the BLOCKS_IN_SEQUENCE to yes and create the schedule. What happens to the results?

2. Delete the BLOCKS_IN_SEQUENCE setting from the scenario.

Parameters
Mining parameters control how blocks are accessed and how the values of some of the attributes applied
to the blocks can be manipulated. The main parameters that you will look at in this tutorial are
BLOCK_FACTOR, MAX_ACTIVE_BENCHES, MAX_ACTIVE_LOCATIONS,
MAX_BENCH_DROP_PER_PERIOD, MAX_BENCHES_PER_PERIOD and SWELL_FACTOR.
There are other parameters available in the MineSched list (BLOCK_VOLUME and
MAX_ACTIVE_GROUPS). The next tutorial will explain these parameters where short-term mining
options are explored.
The key difference between parameters and precedences is that parameters can change over time by
using the Date/Event field.

SWELL_FACTOR
Valid Values – any number greater than zero that is relative to 1. A Value of 1 represents no swell,
a value less than 1 indicates a shrinking of volume, and a value greater than 1 indicates a swell.
The swell factor is a multiplier provided on material being removed from a mining location. You can apply
it to mining locations and to stockpiles where the stockpile material is being moved to other stockpiles or
to fill locations. This factor is useful for determining how much material will fit into a defined fill location.
1. Add a SWELL_FACTOR to the mining locations of 20%.

This multiplier applies to all materials mined from these locations. This includes the WASTE and
the ORE.
2. Create the schedule, and view the results. Create the graphical results, and view the animation.

Page 32 of 58
 Table of Contents

With a SWELL_FACTOR of 20%, the two waste dumps fill up long before the mining is completed.
3. Create a custom report that reports the waste added to the waste dumps and the waste removed
from the mining locations.

Page 33 of 58
 Table of Contents

You can see in the images that the total waste mined (after swell is applied) is almost 24 million
cubic metres. However, the waste dumps can only hold approximately 18 million cubic metres.
It is important to see that MineSched does not stop scheduling the mining location because the fill
locations are full. How can you correct this situation?
You need to redesign the fill locations to accommodate the material being sent to it. Although this
tutorial does not cover the redesign, you can adjust the designs to allow another 6 million cubic
metres of materials to be deposited in the fill locations. You can do this by redesigning the base
area, increasing the height of the existing dumps or adding a third waste dump.

TIP: Often in cases like this, it is easier to add a stockpile that will act as an overflow of waste material. In many
cases, this material may be dumped back in the existing pit (with appropriate lags to the mining) or the
waste dumps will simply need to be redesigned.

You can also apply the SWELL_FACTOR to the graphical display of the stockpiles by adding the rescale
factor.
4. Add the SWELL_FACTOR as the rescale factor to the stockpiles.

5. Animate the schedule again and be sure to animate the stockpiles.

Page 34 of 58
 Table of Contents

MAX_BENCHES_PER_PERIOD
Valid Values – any integer greater than zero.
The MAX_BENCHES_PER_PERIOD parameter allows you set the maximum number of benches that
can be mined from in a period.
If the benches are relatively small this could mean that the resource is under allocated as the benches
could be completed prior to the end of the period. If this occurs then no more production will be allocated
during the period in this location.
It is important for you to understand the the difference between this parameter and
MAX_BENCH_DROP_PER_PERIOD. This parameter allows mining on all of the benches that are
allocated in the specified number and does not allow mining from any other benches.
Below is an example where the MAX_BENCHES_PER_PERIOD is set to 3.

Page 35 of 58
 Table of Contents

This parameter is not applicable to this schedule.

MAX_BENCH_DROP_PER_PERIOD
Valid Values – any integer greater than zero.
The MAX_BENCH_DROP_PER_PERIOD allows you to define the maximum number of vertical blocks
that can be mined in a period. This parameter is not applicable to this tutorial.
This parameter is used to restrict the number of blocks that can be taken in a vertical column. It is
important that you understand difference between this parameter and MAX_BENCHES_PER_PERIOD.
This parameter is used when mining into a hill. If there are no maximum active benches specified and the
MAX_BENCH_DROP_PER_PERIOD is set to three, this will allow mining on multiple benches; however,
no more than three blocks can be taken vertically.

MAX_ACTIVE_BENCHES
Valid Values – any integer greater than zero.

Page 36 of 58
 Table of Contents

The MAX_ACTIVE_BENCHES allows you to specify the maximum number of benches that can be active
at one time. This differs from the MAX_BENCH_DROP_PER_PERIOD and the
MAX_BENCHES_PER_PERIOD because if a bench is completed during the period then mining will not
stop. Once a bench is completed another bench can become active.
For example, if the maximum active benches is set to 2. Mining will commence on the first two benches,
once the first bench is completed the third bench will start so benches 2 and 3 will be active.
This parameter is applicable to this schedule.
You currently have too many benches active at any one time. This needs to be improved.
1. Add the MAX_ACTIVE_BENCHES parameter for each mining location, and set it to a value of 2.
This means that two benches can be active in STAGE_1 ,and two benches can be active in
STAGE_2, so four benches could be active at any one time in total.

Note: The above could be specified on one line similarly to the SWELL_FACTOR.
2. Create the schedule, and view the results.

Page 37 of 58
 Table of Contents

The schedule looks much better. Both the mining sequence and the target results look good.
3. Add a MAX_ACTIVE_BENCHES of 1 for the Waste Dump Locations, create the schedule, and
view the results.

MAX_ACTIVE_LOCATIONS
Valid Values – any integer greater than zero.

Page 38 of 58
 Table of Contents

Similarly to MAX_ACTIVE_BENCHES, the MAX_ACTIVE_LOCATIONS parameter allows you to specify

the maximum number of locations that be actively mined in any one period. If a location finishes part of
the way through a period, MineSched chooses a new location from the set of active locations.
This parameter is not applicable to this scenario as there are only two locations available.
This parameter is very powerful when combined with target scheduling. When target scheduling, the
locations that best allow you to meet your targets are chosen and when a location is completed the next
best location that helps meet the defined targets is chosen.
When combined with the parameter RECALC_ACTIVE_LOCATIONS_AT_PERIOD_START, this allows
the set of active locations to be to be chosen at the start of each period.
This parameter is most useful when there are many locations from which to choose, for example,
underground stopes or a multi-pit blending operation. The parameter can either be specified globally or
location specific.
A global specification is where the MAX_ACTIVE_LOCATIONS are chosen from all the available
locations.

A location specific specification is where the MAX_ACTIVE_LOCATIONS are only chosen from a pre-
defined set of locations. This is done by using the locations to choose from in the location field.

BLOCK_FACTOR
Valid Values – any number zero or greater than zero.
The BLOCK_FACTOR is similar to the SWELL_FACTOR because it acts like a multiplier on values in the
block; however, BLOCK_FACTOR will act as a multiplier on the volume, mass, and any aggregated
qualities defined prior to scheduling.
The BLOCK_FACTOR parameter is also material-specific. This makes this parameter useful for
dilution/reduction calculation in the schedule. Material-specific block factors are created by choosing the
BLOCK_FACTOR parameter and appending the material class with an underscore. For example
BLOCK_FACTOR_WASTE.
1. Add dilution/reduction into the schedule such that the quantity of waste is increased by 10% and
the quantity of ore is decreased by 10%. This is in line with the recovery factors that were defined
earlier in the User Calculations.

Page 39 of 58
 Table of Contents

2. Create the schedule, and view the results. The increase in waste volume has extended the
schedule by a further two months. Is this correct?
Technically the schedule is not correct. The BLOCK_FACTOR applies to all the blocks in the
location. The blocks that lie far away from the boundary of the ore are all a single material of
WASTE or internally in the ore body would be all ORE. These blocks will not incur
dilution/reduction. How can you account for this? There are two methods:
♦ You can use dilution/reduction calculations in the block model using the tools in the Mine
Planning Software to dilute areas around edge of ore bodies prior to scheduling.
♦ You can redefine the mining locations to spatially separate out the areas subject to
dilution/reduction. This could be time consuming for a life of mine study and is best handled
in the short-term schedule.
3. As this does not have a large affect on the schedule, you can choose to remove the
BLOCK_FACTOR specifications or leave them in.

Production rate modifiers

MineSched also handles modifiers to production rates. There are many reasons that production rates
should be modified. These include, different mining rates through different material classes, weather
conditions causing a modification of the rate, or variable availability of the mining location.
These modifiers are available in the Production Rates data grid in the Resources section. In this tutorial,
you will look at examples of all of the modifiers of CAPFACT, NOMAVAIL, PRODFACT, and
PRODFACT_ATTRIBUTES; however, you will only apply PRODFACT to the schedule.

CAPFACT
Valid Values – any positive number relative to 100. This is a percentage. To modify the rate such
that the mining rate is the same as the MAX_RATE, use a value of 100. To reduce the mining rate,
use a value less than 100. To increase the rate, use a value greater than 100.
The CAPFACT modifier is a value related to 100 that acts as a percentage multiplier on the MAX_RATE
of a resource in a defined location. A value of 100 would mean there is no change in the MAX_RATE as
defined, a value less than 100 will reduce the rate, and a value greater than 100 will increase the rate.
Note: This modifier does not affect the Resource Capacity. The CAPFACT is resource-specific. You must specify a
resource with CAPFACT

For example, consider there are three active locations, PIT1 (Priority 1), PIT2 (Priority 2), and PIT3
(Priority 3). Each location has a MAX_RATE of 5000 tonnes per day. The defined resource,
SHOVEL_FLEET has a Resource Capacity of 12000 tonnes per day.
If the schedule was created with just this information, the resource capacity would be assigned to the
highest priority location first (PIT 1) then excess capacity will be assigned to the next highest priority

Page 40 of 58
 Table of Contents

location (PIT 2), and so on. So in this case, the SHOVEL_FLEET would have its capacity distributed in
the following manner:
PIT1 5000
PIT2 5000
PIT3 2000

If a CAPFACT value of 75 is assigned to location PIT1, then this means that only 75% of the MAX_RATE
can be used in this location. However as the Resource capacity is unaffected, this can be distributed to
the other locations.
PIT1 3750
PIT2 5000
PIT3 3250
The CAPFACT modifier is used when the rate needs to be adjusted in one or more locations without
affecting the overall resource capacity. For example, due to ore control processes the rate of the resource
in the location needs to be reduced, however, the excess resource capacity can still be used in another
location.
In this case, you may reduce the MAX_RATE with the CAPFACT; however, the SHOVEL_FLEET could
be used elsewhere as its capacity is unaffected.

NOMAVAIL
Valid Values – any positive number relative to 100. This is a percentage. To modify the rate such
that the mining rate is the same as the MAX_RATE, use a value of 100. To reduce the mining rate
use a value less than 100 and to increase the rate, use a value greater than 100.
You use the NOMAVAIL modifier in the same way as CAPFACT. It is a percentage multiplier on the
MAX_RATE of a resource in a defined location. This is useful when a second multiplier is required in a
location on the MAX_RATE. This could be considered the nominal availability of a location. For example,
a CAPFACT of 75 and a NOMAVAIL of 75 in the same location will result in a multiplier of 0.5625 on the
MAX_RATE in that location.
The NOMAVAIL is resource-specific. You need to registered it with a resource.

You use the NOMAVAIL modifier when more than one instance of MAX_RATE adjustment is required.
For example, a location may only be available for part of the day due to environmental concerns. The ore
control process is taken care of by the use of CAPFACT, but the availability of the location can be

Page 41 of 58
 Table of Contents

controlled by the NOMAVAIL modifier. The SHOVEL_FLEET capacity, however, is unaffected, and its
excess capacity can be used elsewhere.

PRODFACT
Valid Values – any positive number relative to 1.0. This is a ratio. To modify the rate such that the
mining rate is the same as the MAX_RATE, use a value of 1.0. To reduce the mining rate, use a
value less than 1.0. To increase the rate, use a value greater than 1.0.
The PRODFACT modifier is similar to the other modifiers only in that it is a multiplier on the MAX_RATE
specified for a location. MineSched uses PRODFACT as a value related to 1. A value of 1 will leave the
rate unchanged, a value less than 1 will reduce the rate, and a value greater than 1 will increase the rate.
Most importantly the PRODFACT modifier also acts as a multiplier on the overall resource capacity. In
the example above, if you use a PRODFACT of 0.75 in location PIT1 then the result will be as follows:
PIT1 3750
PIT2 5000
PIT3 2000
Note that the overall resource capacity has reduced by 25% from 12000 to 9000 tonnes per day while the
resource is working in PIT1.
PRODFACT is not resource-specific. It is location specific; therefore, you do not need to specify a
resource with the PRODFACT as any resource that works in that location will be affected.
You can use PRODFACT in conjunction with material classes. This is very useful when the material
classes are defined by oxidation states that can have an effect on the production rates. For example, the
production rate in oxide material might be 1.5 times the defined production rate, or production rates in
fresh material may be reduced by 70%. This is used by entering the PRODFACT parameter followed by a
space and then the material class name.
You can use the PRODFACT modifier when the Resource capacity also needs to be adjusted with the
MAX_RATE. For instance, poor weather means that the truck fleet ascends the ramp slower or easy
digging in oxidised material means the rate and capacity can be increased while digging this material.
1. You will add different PRODFACT parameters based on different materials. For example, when
mining WASTE, you can increase the rate since little care needs to be taken. When mining ORE
the rate will be slowed and the capacity decreased because there needs to be constant feedback
from the geology depart that is causing delays in ore production.
Use a 20% increase when mining WASTE and a 15% decrease when mining the different ORE
material classes.

2. Create the schedule. How does this affect the results?

In this tutorial, you have separated the material class by grade. The ore material has been separated by
oxidation state; however, the waste material class has not been separated by oxidation state.
Furthermore, PRODFACTs could be specified based on oxidation state if the WASTE was separated like
this.

Page 42 of 58
 Table of Contents

PRODFACT_ATTRIBUTES
Valid Values – any averaged quality listed in the Qualities panel of the Define Geology step.
Sometimes it is desirable to use a production rate modifier that has been calculated prior to scheduling
and stored in the block model. PRODFACT_ATTRIBUTES allows this. It works in exactly the same way
as PRODFACT; however, the value comes from the block model rather than a number listed in the
Production Rates data grid.
The PRODFACT_ATTRIBUTES modifier is powerful because it can vary on a block by block basis. The
variability of the production factor is limited only by the estimation techniques available in the Mine
Planning Software.
The modifying value needs to be an attribute already in the block model. You should add this to the
Qualities panel of the Define Geology step.

You can then reference this attribute in the Production Rates grid.

Page 43 of 58
 Table of Contents

Haulage and TKM calculations

You can use MineSched to perform haulage route calculations to provide a TKM report. These reports
are often important for making decisions on the mining fleet size and economics.

Adding Haulage to the schedule

To add haulage to a schedule, you first need to define haulage routes using strings in Surpac.

Task: Create haulage route strings

1. You need to digitise haulage routes in Surpac to indicate the path taken for different material
classes. The direction of the strings should be in the same direction of travel as a loaded truck. You
can either digitise the strings onto the dtm surfaces or free digitised and then draped over the dtm
surfaces.
2. In Surpac, open the pit_and_topo.dtm file and the two pit design dtm files in Graphics.
3. Haulage strings need to start from the bottom of the pit and travel right to the top of the waste
dumps. When MineSched calculates the TKM for a mined block, it will take the distance from the
block in a straight line to the point where the blocks elevation intercepts the haulage string.
MineSched uses the distance along the string until it reaches the elevation of the dumping block
where a straight line distance from that haulage departure point to the dumping block is added.
4. Create two points that you can use to reference the position for the HG_STK and the LG_STK. The
coordinates should match those that you entered in the stockpile animation data grid.

Page 44 of 58
 Table of Contents

5. Start with the HG_STK. Using String 1, digitise a string that starts from the bottom of the ramp in
the pit up the ramp and follows a path to the coordinates for the HG_STK. You can digitise the
string and then drape the string over the dtm or snap the digitising to triangles and digitise directly
onto the dtm surface. It is a good idea to digitise these strings into a new layer in Surpac.

6. Repeat the digitising using string 2 for a path from the bottom of the pit to the LG_STK. The string
needs to be in the direction of travel of a loaded truck and start at the bottom of the pit as before.
Snap onto the first string you digitised to ensure that the paths are the same until the road splits to
the LG_STK.

Page 45 of 58
 Table of Contents

7. Repeat the digitising using String 3 for a path from the ramp termination at the bottom of the pit to
the ramp termination at the top of the SOUTH_DUMP. The string needs to be in the direction of
travel of a loaded truck and start at the bottom of the pit as before. Snap onto the first string you
digitised to ensure that the paths are the same until the road splits to the SOUTH_DUMP.

8. Repeat the digitising using String 4 for a path from the ramp termination at the bottom of the pit to
the ramp termination at the top of the NORTH_DUMP. The string needs to be in the direction of
travel of a loaded truck and start at the bottom of the pit as before. Snap onto the first string you
digitised to ensure that the paths are the same until the road splits to the NORTH_DUMP.

Page 46 of 58
 Table of Contents

9. After you digisitse all of the strings, you can save the strings into their own file. You can save
haulage strings to separate files if required, or you can save all strings in the same file. Save the
strings to a single file called haulage_strings_1.str in the polygons directory.

10. In MineSched go to the Locations section and select the Haulage tab. In this data grid, you can
define the haulage routes that are available to the schedule. Add the haulage routes as shown
below.

TIP: In some mining scenarios, there are multiple ramps into the pit. In this case, the individual haulage routes
up separate ramps can either be defined using separate strings or as different segments of the same
string. When defining the haulage routes, if a block can take either route, whichever is the shortest, then
a range of strings can be entered into the string field or a range of segments can be entered into the
segment field (blank fields mean all strings or all segments). MineSched will evaluate the total haulage
length from the source block to its final destination and the block will be trucked using the overall shortest
route. If a route is to be forced for certain blocks, then that route should be defined separately.

Page 47 of 58
 Table of Contents

11. After you define the haulage routes defined, you can link the material movement rules to the
relative haulage routes. Add the correct haulage routes to the material movement rules by selecting
the route in the route field.
Haulage to the MILL is not included in TKM considerations in this schedule. In this case, it could be
because a different contract governs the haulage to the MILL or perhaps the MILL is next to the
ROM and blending is done using a loader only.

12. Run the schedule to update the haulage information in the results.
13. In the dashboard, add a new mining locations chart. In the list that appears, TKM will be available.
Add the two TKM options to the chart.

Page 48 of 58
 Table of Contents

14. When the chart appears, it will be a line chart. Change the charted option to those shown below.
You can report the TKM over different gradient ranges that can assist with costs. You can do this
by adding a modifier after the reported value. A modifier is added using the colon ( : ) as a
separator and then separating the range of values with a semi-colon ( ; ). For example, TKM:0;9
will chart the TKM value between the gradients of 0% and 9% (all gradients are in percentage).

Page 49 of 58
 Table of Contents

15. In the chart above from period 15 onwards, the TKM drops away significantly. It is at this part of the
schedule that material would be hauled from deeper in the pit providing a longer haul distance. Is
this result correct? How can you validate these results?
16. Looking at the other charts, a reasonably constant mass is mined and by looking at the graphical
results, mining is indeed occurring deeper in the pit. A change to the way the TKM is charted (chart
the TKM by material class) will reveal the problem.

From these results you can see that during period 15, WASTE material stops being reported in the
TKM chart. This is an effect from the waste dumps that were added earlier in the schedule. These

Page 50 of 58
 Table of Contents

waste dumps were deliberately designed to be too small to hold all of the waste to illustrate that
mining does not stop because there is no destination for the waste. But with no destination for the
waste, TKM cannot be reported.
17. Design a new waste dump, or add an overflow stockpile to catch this waste. Digitise a new haulage
route to this new destination, and assign it to the material movement. Run the schedule and
confirm your results.

Page 51 of 58
 Table of Contents

Reporting TKM
You can chart the TKM results in the dashboard or create detailed reports. You can use custom reports to
extract only the information required from the schedule.

Task: Create detailed haulage reports

1. Go to the Publish Results step, and click on the Standard reports section.
2. Create the standard reports. You can publish reports to CSV files, to Access databases, or to an
ODBC connected data source. Publish the results to CSV.

3. Open the results_haulage_detailed.csv file in Excel.

Page 52 of 58
 Table of Contents

4. You can see the detailed haulage report is very comprehensive. This report is useful for further
processing.

Task: Create a custom TKM report

1. In the Publish Results step, go to the Custom Reports section.
2. Add a new report that reports the TKM as shown below. This is similar to the chart created in the
dashboard. You can use the modifiers in the report to separate the figures into gradient ranges. In
the case, you are interested in haulage that was along relatively flat terrain (0% to 5%) and
haulage up the ramps (>5%).

3. Create the report, and view it.

Page 53 of 58
 Table of Contents

4. Create a template that performs other calculations that may be useful. In the example below,
MineSched has calculated the truck return times and has used a formula to estimate the number of
trucks required at that time during the schedule. Another formula calculates the fuel costs. These
calculations are based on loaded and unloaded truck velocities through different gradients.

Page 54 of 58
 Table of Contents

More graphical outputs

When the schedule is complete, you can generate the final graphical outputs. The two graphical outputs
are Bench plans and End of period surfaces.

Bench plans
Bench plans are useful when the schedule needs to be presented to be able to plot. You can also use the
polygons created in the bench plan to define the areas required for scheduling in the short-term.
1. Create the schedule and go to the Graphical Results section of the Publish Results step.
2. Select to create the bench plans, and create the Graphical Results.

3. When blocks are not consolidated, MineSched creates the results using the individual blocks. If the
blocks are consolidated, then MineSched creates a single polygon for each period for each bench.
The string number of the polygons corresponds to the period number. Information such as period
numbers, dates, material classes, volumes, masses, and qualities are written to description fields
to facilitate plotting.

Page 55 of 58
 Table of Contents

4. Keep these outputs for the next tutorial.

End of period surfaces

End of period surfaces are great for presentation purposes. It is important to realise that while they are
accurate enough to illustrate the schedule, they are not an accurate representation that could be used for
further calculations.
End of period surfaces are based on a grid that is related to the mining block size. Before you can
generate End of period surfaces, you must define the surface spatial geometry.
1. Go to the Graphical Results section, and choose to create End of period surfaces.

2. Choose a filename prefix and a grid spacing size.

The grid spacing will represent the resolution of the surface. The smaller the grid spacing, the
longer it will take to process. Grid spacing too small may cause an out of memory error in Surpac.
A good place to start is to use a block size the same as your mining block size. If this is acceptable
stop there, otherwise you can try a smaller grid size.
The amount of processing will increase exponentially as the grid spacing decreases. For instance,
at the mining block size, this would be 4 grid point per block to calculate. At half the block size, this
would be 16 points per block to calculate. At half of that again, this would be 43 points per block
(64 points).
3. Click the Location Geometry button. You must enter the upper and lower surfaces here. That is
add the dtm file that represents the location at the start of the schedule. The lower surface is what
the final surface will look like at the end of the schedule.
Fill in the location geometry as shown below.

Page 56 of 58
 Table of Contents

MineSched created the image below at a grid spacing of 12.5. On an average spec computer, this
took approximately five minutes to generate. The image has also been colour graded.

Page 57 of 58
 Table of Contents

Where to next?
This concludes the creation of a long-term schedule. Over the previous four tutorials, you have looked at
how to use MineSched while creating a schedule that includes material movement, quality, and material
ratio targets that blend to meet the targets and is practical. You have explored many of the parameters
within MineSched and have used many of them in this schedule.
The objective of the tutorial was to walk you through the most used functionality in the software. The
schedule produced is valid, practical, and useful.
The last tutorial in this series will take the results of one of the periods and create a short-term schedule
that will include sequencing of blast polygons and the inclusion of ancillary scheduling activities like
drilling and blasting.

Page 58 of 58