Integrating infrastructure and production schedules
Managing all underground work is a key challenge for miners delivering large scale construction or expansion projects in mines.
Planning of work is spread across many stakeholders and completed in disparate systems, making it difficult or impossible to identify and manage the project critical path.
Work is planned by mine planners, EPC contractors, in-house engineering and project controls teams. Not all planning systems used are capable of managing shared locations and materials underground. The result? Rolled-up project master schedules that appear comprehensive but fall apart at granular levels of detail once the realities of underground mining are quantified and the ‘real’ critical path emerges.
The resolution to this issue is straightforward, and can be achieved with existing, proven technology: integrate ALL influencing activities into a single planning environment that can manage shared locations and material constraints underground. Use this fit-for-purpose site master schedule to manage risk, identify and resolve interactions and bottlenecks, then optimize for value.
To achieve this goal, a collaborative approach is required from multiple stakeholders, supported by a willingness to challenge old ways of doing things with new applications for technology, strong leadership, and effective change management.
