Long-Term Room and Pillar Mine Production Planning Based on Fuzzy 0-1 Linear Programing and Multicriteria Clustering Algorithm with Uncertainty

Abstract

Production planning in an underground mine plays a key activity in the mining company business. It is supported by the fact that mineral industry is unique and volatile environment. There are two uncertain parameters that cannot be managed by planners, metal price, and operating costs. Having ability to quantify and incorporate them in the process of planning can help companies to do their business in much easier way. We quantify these uncertainties by the simulation of mean reverting process and Itô-Doob stochastic differential equation, respectively. Mineral deposit is represented as a set of mineable blocks and room and pillar mining method is selected as a way of mining. Multicriteria clustering algorithm is used to create areas inside of mineral deposit that have technological characteristics required by the planners. We also developed a way to forecast the volatility of economic values of these areas through the planning period. Fuzzy 0-1 linear programming model is used to define the sequence of mining of these areas by maximization of the expected value of the fuzzy future cash flow. Model was tested on small hypothetical lead-zinc mineral deposit and results showed that our approach was able to solve such complex problem.