An improved meta-heuristic approach to extraction sequencing and block routing

Abstract

Mine production scheduling can be solved through many different techniques that have the drawbacks of either producing sub-optimal solutions or taking a long time. In this paper, a new approach based on a meta-heuristic is proposed. Meta-heuristic approaches use processing, inference, and memory at the same time in order to learn how to improve the solution. Different meta-heuristic techniques and their applications to mine production scheduling are discussed. A meta-heuristic approach, a combination of heuristic memory and simulated annealing, as demonstrated by means of a case study, takes a sub-optimal solution and improves it over time; thus it provides the best solution that it finds in the given time.