Production Scheduling of Open Pit Mines Using Particle Swarm Optimization Algorithm

Determining an optimum long term production schedule is an important part of the planning process of any open pit mine; however, the associated optimization problem is demanding and hard to deal with, as it involves large datasets and multiple hard and soft constraints which makes it a large combinatorial optimization problem. In this paper a procedure has been proposed to apply a relatively new and computationally less expensive metaheuristic technique known as particle swarm optimization (PSO) algorithm to this computationally challenging problem of the open pit mines. The performance of different variants of the PSO algorithm has been studied and the results are presented.