Management of Drilling Operations in Surface Mines Using Reliability Analysis and Discrete Event Simulation

Abstract

Low commodity prices have forced many mining companies to explore new strategies to minimize operating costs. One cost-saving strategy is to increase drilling efficiency and performance, specifically in open pit mines; drilling operations are expensive, and they directly and indirectly affect most aspects of the mining process. A substantial portion of drilling costs is associated with drill bit consumption due to bit wear. Bit wear decreases the rate of penetration, which reduces drilling efficiency, but changing the bit unnecessarily early increases drilling costs. In addition to this decision-making dilemma, the inventory management strategy is also crucial to cost minimization. The innovative aspect of this paper is to propose an approach for determining the number of bits required in a given period and compute the number of holes to be drilled in drilling operations through reliability analysis and discrete event simulation under uncertainty. Reliability analysis is an effective method to monitor the efficiency and performance of mining equipment and ensure that performance goals and quality criteria are met. In this paper, reliability analysis of drilling machines and drill bits was performed and the relationship between reliability and machine performance was established. The range of drillable holes was also determined. Results of 100 simulations showed that the proposed approach can be an effective tool to facilitate production scheduling and asset management.