Simulation-based optimal planning for material handling network in mining

A two-level hierarchical simulation-based framework is proposed for real-time planning in one of the largest truck shovel coal mines in the world. At the coal mine, various decisions (e.g. truck locks, hopper-silo connections and silo blend values) have to be made in quick successions to ship coal to customers via trains. Currently, these decisions are made without much prior planning; consequently they result in sub-optimal performance and the mine loses potential premiums on its shipped product. To resolve machinery scheduling and train loading problems in an integrated manner, mathematical formulations are developed and embedded at two levels of the hierarchy within the proposed framework. The problems are solved using the hierarchical method of solving. Using this method, the optimization process is continued until a better solution cannot be achieved at the upper level for which exists at least one solution at the lower level. In this work, Arena's OptQuest is used to resolve optimization problems, and Arena is used for the proposed simulation model. Finally, experiments are conducted to illustrate and test performance of the proposed framework for the actual coalmine.