Mintec vice president Glenn Wylde said Version 5 of the MineSight Schedule Optimizer was suitable for short, medium, and long-term planning and incorporated 64-bit technology for faster processing power.

“Mining partial percentage cuts allows you to split a cut into multiple scheduling periods,” he said.

“So if a percentage of a cut is enough to achieve the target for a period, then the remaining percentage of this cut can be carried over to the next period.”

Depending on how detailed the scheduling is, a planner may want to design bigger cuts, which will save space, memory and run time. Version 5 offers the ability to split bigger cuts into multiple periods.

For long-term and medium-term planning, there is the option of using bench reserves, in which an entire bench will be cut.

“Occasionally, mining operations are conducted on multiple benches simultaneously,” Wylde said. “In this case, a bench can be mined partially as long as the upper bench has opened up enough space for equipment and crew.

“Partial cut mining is essential in calendar-based scheduling.”