5 Conclusions
Drilling and blasting are important steps in the
chain of mining processes and their results, such as
fragmentation, muckpile shape and looseness, dilution,
damage and rock softening, affect the efficiency
of downstream processes. However, the application
of the operation of blasting must conform to site conditions
and should not be borrowed from somewhere
else where improvement have been made based on
safety, economy and selectivity requirements. This
study has been able to show that after monitoring
drilling and blasting operations in a particular open
pit mine one can use statistical methods to optimize
the entire operations for the smooth running of a
mine.