Setting up Scheduler
Easy-to-use Interface
The Navigation Bar on the main window allows you to easily switch views at the click of a button as you set up your model. After importing block model data, perform a quick tonnage and grade reconciliation on a model, pit or bench level with the summary tonnage chart and grades table. Then, switch to the production view to set tonnage and grade targets with the spreadsheet-style tabular interface. After setting up the financial information and optionally defining intermediate stockpiles, you are ready to press the auto-schedule button to automatically generate a schedule.
Simple Mine Definition Wizard
The mine definition wizard prompts you through a series of windows where you fill in information regarding the products (or processes) you wish to model together with their attributes. This process normally takes just a few seconds. After stepping through the wizard you are ready to import your data.
Retain Parcel Information
When you import your model data, you have the option of grouping together blocks with similar grades to retain parcel information and avoid grade smoothing. This is particularly helpful when you have set up stockpiles and want to retain selectivity with respect to block destination (mill or stockpile).
Optionally Reblock Data
When importing, you may choose to geometrically reblock your data into larger mining panels. This is helpful when you do not have stages or pushbacks defined and wish to develop a staging strategy in the context of scheduling. You can set the panel size in the X, Y and Z directions. Geometric reblocking also helps address minimum mining width issues that haven't been considered in a staging analysis.
Import Gridded Seam Data
Minemax Scheduler now handles gridded seam models. A gridded seam model is a grid (normally regular) in the X-Y direction with a stack of cells at each X,Y coordinate. Cell heights (Z dimension) can vary throughout the model. Seam data is imported into Minemax Scheduler with grade information and seam identifiers, and in the summary view you can view information by seam instead of by bench. In addition, the 3D Viewer will colour-code the blocks by seam. Gridded seam approaches are common in modeling coal, bauxite or lateritic deposits where the zones of interest approximate horizontal layers.
Interfaces with General Mining Packages
All general mining packages will export column based ascii data for their block models. Some packages have tools for exporting this data directly in Minemax Scheduler format. For those that do not, it is quite simple to use Minemax Scheduler's scripting language (TCL) to reformat the data.
Incrementally Import Block Model
After generating a schedule, it is sometimes desirable to import more data to extend the schedule. This is straightforward with Minemax Scheduler due to its ability to focus on specific time ranges according to your direction. You simply import the new data and continue scheduling from where your current schedule finishes off.
