We analyse the availability/utilisation of the mining equipments and their productivities. The analysis gives good insight into the shovel/loader performance and potential areas of improvement. Dispatch data is analysed in detail to understand the effects of blasting, rock properties, shovel type and operator influences on the instantaneous loading productivity. With improved blasting results, we help deliver increased dig rates, reduced maintenance and reduce the total mining cost. Analysis of blasting and load/haul data also provides insights to the optimisation of the waste blasts. Analysis of such data results in reduced total mining cost as well as helps understand the geology, shovel type and operator effects on the loading productivity. We have sufficient resources to conduct these analyses.

We have conducted a major study to optimise the waste mining cost at an Asian Gold Mine. This site was using one Hitachi EX1900, one Hitachi EX1200 and one CAT992. We have benchmarked the waste and wall-control blasts and improved the designs following our analyses. The study showed that

• Blasts designs should be tailored to blast types (ore/waste/wall-control), rock strength/structure as well as loading equipment (shovel/loader).
• Blast design templates were created based on above conditions. Initiation designs including delay timing were chosen for each condition.
• Prior to the blast design changes, the mine was achieving 845tph and 638tph for EX1900 and EX1200 excavators, respectively. After the design changes, there was a significant change in dig rates (1100 tph for EX1900 and 798 tph for EX1200 excavators, respectively). It was shown that dig rates of the EX1900 and EX1200 excavators increased by 30.2% and 25.1, respectively.
• The increases in dig rates resulted in significant cost savings to the Mine.