Mining production forecast is normally integrated
into a short term operational plan of a mine. This is
mostly done deterministically from mathematical
relations with the input parameters stemming from
the previous utilisations, availabilities and digging
rates of the shovel-truck system (Sweigard, 1992
and Hustrulid et al 2013). Mostly, end of
production week (scoping) meetings are organised
for both mine planning and operations engineers to
project average digging rates, availabilities and
utilisations of the loading units used in the
production. The mathematical relation involved in
forecasting production per week for a loading unit
in most surface mines as can be represented by
equation 3.1 (Sweigard ,1992 and Hustrulid et al
2013).
Production = A x U x Dig Rate x Time (3.1)
Where
A = availability of the loading unit (%);
U = utilisation of the loading unit (%)