EURO 2025 Leeds
Abstract Submission

256. An Integrated Rolling Horizon Approach for Mining Operations Planning with Environmental Considerations

Invited abstract in session MD-42: Sustainable supply chains I, stream Circular & Sustainable Supply Chains.

Monday, 14:30-16:00
Room: Newlyn GR.02

Authors (first author is the speaker)

1. Taha LAKHDARI
Africa Business School, University Mohammed VI Polytechnic
2. Ilyas Himmich
MAGI, Polytechnique Montreal ; Université Mohammed 6 Polytechnique
3. Tarik Aouam
Department of Business Informatics and Operations Management, Ghent University

Abstract

In the mining industry, the production of marketable ores involves multiple processes, such as extraction, treatment, transportation, blending, and drying. Blending decisions depend on previous processing options. Ignoring these dependencies can lead to suboptimal solutions, while integrating blending decisions into the supply chain increases planning complexity.

Uncertain demand, short lead times, and prioritized orders lead managers to use substitution strategies, providing products with deviated qualities or delayed delivery. This approach often results in blending rare superior qualities to fulfill less profitable demands, leading to significant production cost losses and valuable resource destruction. These substitution strategies often lead to inefficient asset utilization that results in over-consumption of water and energy due to missed optimization opportunities.

To address these issues, we propose a spatio-temporal decomposition methodology dividing the mining supply chain into Tactical, Operational, and Emergency Levels. These planning levels communicate via an integrated rolling horizon approach, ensuring a continuous information exchange, synchronized mid-, short, and urgent-term purposes, and adapt dynamically to unforeseen events affecting the production system. In real-world phosphate mining applications, this methodology has reduced total costs by 30% and significantly decreased water and energy usage compared to traditional management practices.

Keywords

Status: accepted

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