A Guide to Process Control in Underground Mining

By: Scott Bahr

Every project has a due date or a deadline, a goal that must be met to keep the effort moving along smoothly without significant delays. While some projects are clear and only have a couple of tasks that must be completed to reach the end goal, some are far more complex, including underground mining. Process control makes it possible to properly coordinate and manage underground mining projects, creating a way to schedule tasks, manage employees, and handle other elements that are necessary for each job that must be completed.

In mining, underground mining in particular, some tasks are dependent on another task being completed, happening at the same time, or are constrained by the availability of machinery or people. Process control ensures there is a plan in place to make sure tasks are completed and not unnecessarily delayed by a lack of foresight. It can be a complicated effort, but thanks to some intricate process frameworks, the rewards can be realized.

Difficulties of process control in underground mining

Unlike surface mining, process control relating to underground mining can be significantly more difficult because of the spatial limitations that come with working underground. Where the naked eye can view surface mining factors, underground mining is concealed. As Song, Schunnesson, Rinne, and Sturgul note in their 2015 study, An Approach to Realizing Process Control for Underground Mining Operations of Mobile Machines, the delay of a single operation can lead to a domino effect that affects the starting and completion time for all of the tasks to follow.

Process control techniques

There are a couple of ways to monitor the process of underground mining and estimate the time to completion of a project. The first is Program Evaluation Review Technique (PERT). This method uses charts to plan tasks within a project, making it possible to coordinate a team properly, accomplish the work, and visualize the timeline as a whole. Typically, PERT is used to create multiple time estimates for a project, including the shortest, the most probable, and the longest amount of time if things go awry. This process was first created in the 1950s to manage the creation of weapons and defense projects for the United States Navy.

While PERT was being created for the public industry in the 1950s, the private sector came up with its own method of process control called Critical Path Method (CPM). This method is explanatory in name – it’s a step-by-step technique that identifies activities on the “critical path” and displays them on a flow chart to understand what must be completed on time to reach the end goal. This means identifying which tasks might not immediately or directly affect the critical path that can be pushed back or completed later if something unexpected happens. Identifying which tasks need to happen at the same time, what needs to be done immediately, and more are some of the benefits of CPM, which recognizes every project as more complex than one task after another.

It is promising to know that intelligent individuals knowledgeable about process control and its methods continue to innovate and develop digital methods. IoT technology and computerized techniques ensure that complex projects are well-managed and planned. Underground mining operations that leverage process control will continue to improve and develop and produce more timely and accurate results in the field.