Frontline supervisors in mining are responsible for thousands of daily decisions-from guiding teams to hitting production targets, to balancing safety and efficiency. Yet, without integrated systems for mine scheduling, many supervisors must rely on incomplete information, leading to guesswork instead of informed choices.
Our work with Unison Mining clients highlights several recurring challenges:
- Task Focus: Supervisors often struggle to prioritize the most critical activities, sometimes spending too much time on lower-impact tasks.
- Mobility Costs: Excessive time is lost traveling between the mine face and offices to access data or perform calculations, reducing time spent on core responsibilities.
- Shift Plan Deviations: When supervisors lack real-time data, adherence to shift plans slips, causing delays and inefficiencies.
These issues frequently arise from siloed data-where information on equipment, personnel, and maintenance is scattered across separate systems, hindering a holistic view and limiting effective, data-driven decision-making.
Transforming Mine Scheduling with Integrated Data and Algorithms
Traditional dispatch systems tend to focus narrowly on equipment allocation, missing the bigger picture of optimizing the entire mining cycle. This limitation is common across underground, surface, and open-pit operations, regardless of commodity.
A modern mine scheduling strategy must go further-prioritizing tasks based on how they interconnect, factoring in equipment status, workforce capacity, location, and distance. The most effective schedulers use real-time algorithms to simulate and optimize various scenarios, ensuring resources are assigned where they’ll have the greatest impact.
Every hour lost to bottlenecks isn’t just downtime-it’s a risk to the entire operation’s productivity and cost structure. Optimizing the sequence and allocation of mining activities directly improves efficiency, cost control, and safety.
Unison’s Mine Scheduler: Smarter Resource Allocation, Real Results
To address these frontline challenges, Unison Mining’s scheduling tool leverages a proprietary algorithm that considers a broader range of inputs – not just equipment, but also personnel, ore quality, and operational constraints. This holistic approach enables planners and supervisors to:
- Assign equipment and teams in the most effective sequence for the next 24 hours, closely aligning with mine plans.
- Maximize mine face utilization, ensuring every shift delivers optimal results.
- Monitor plan adherence and shift outcomes in real time, using existing communication systems for seamless integration.
By providing a single, intuitive interface, Unison’s scheduler empowers supervisors to focus on high-priority tasks, reduce unnecessary travel, and respond quickly to on-site changes. The result is improved plan compliance, reduced delays, and a more agile operation.
Drive On-Site Excellence with Optimized Mine Scheduling
Data-driven scheduling transforms frontline decision-making, enabling supervisors to act with confidence and precision. By breaking down data silos and automating complex scheduling decisions, mines can consistently deliver on safety, productivity, and profitability goals.
