Even with the financial crisis of 2008, the steel consumption forecast for the BRIC countries - Brazil, Russia, India and China - is for a significant increase over the next decades, due to their present low per-capita consumption level. The start up of new mines to supply this increase in demand is likely to be limited due to legal and practical restrictions related to environmental, social, manpower and energy issues. Therefore, most of the new demand for iron ore will be supplied by increasing the productivity of mines currently in operation. The main challenges for managing mine productivity are related to the choice of the estimation method, due to the difficulties in collecting appropriate information and to the establishment of a representative model. This article presents an estimation approach for mine productivity estimation through multiple regressions over the operational database of the mine. The approach is proposed through a Mine Productivity Estimation and Management tool (MPEM) which can deliver savings related to increased production efficiency by the identification and removal of losses in the mine production flow. Production improvement has been actually achieved in practical applications by managing the discrepancies in the KPIs of different operating shift crews. The operational variables have been identified directly over the operational database of the mine and the model has been developed in a simple and easy-to-use fashion, with excellent levels of correlation between the estimated and actual values of the mine's productivity. The article describes the development approach as well as the application of the model in a case-study.
Mine productivity; mine production management; mine planning
