U S E R S C O N F E R E N C E 1 4 - 1 5 O C T O B E R 2 0 0 3

Equipment Reporting with the IP Tool in MineSight (version 3.3)

Presented by: Mac Nichols, Mining Systems Analyst, Metech Pty Ltd

Introduction
Short-term planning equipment reporting capabilities will be available in MineSight Interactive Planner
(IP) version 3.3. These enhanced capabilities include:
Reporting of Truck Hours and Number of Trucks by Period, Cut, Material type and cutoff within
a cut.
Reporting of Shovel Hours and Number of Shovels by Period, Cut, Material type and cutoff
within a cut.
Automatic Cut Attribution with pushback, bench, destination(s), and equipment usage
information.
To use the MineSight IP Equipment Reporting Option you must:
1. Prepare a Cycle Time ASCII File for the different pushbacks, destinations and truck
types used.
2. Specify user attributes for storing pushback, bench, destination data and equipment
hours by cut into the MineSight Attributed Geometry Database (AGDM). This is
optional but recommended.
3. Run the Equipment Setup Python Script (eqsetup.py) from within MineSight IP.
4. Run the Equipment Reporting Python Script (equipment.py) from within MineSight
IP
This paper will follow these four steps in detail and demonstrate the final output of the process.

Step 1 Preparing the Cycle Time ASCII File

This file is a free format (space delimited) ASCII file with a Title Line and entries for each field as shown
below:

#PUSH BENCH DEST LIFT SUBZONE 240T 300T

PB-1 2645 ore none none 2.5 3.7
PB-1 2645 dump none none 4.5 5.7
PB-1 2645 leach none none 6.5 7.7
PB-1 2630 ore none none 12.5 13.7
PB-1 2630 dump none none 24.5 26.7
PB-1 2630 leach none none 66.5 68.7

This format and set of input fields is the same as the Cycle Time Input File used by the MineSight Strategic
Planner for Long-Term Scheduling.
 U S E R S C O N F E R E N C E 1 4 - 1 5 O C T O B E R 2 0 0 3

Cycle times in minutes for as many different truck types as you want can be input. The above example has
cycle times for 240 tonne and 300 tonne trucks. The cycle time includes everything except the truck loading
time.
Destinations can be broken down into three levels of detail (DEST, LIFT, and SUBZONE). All three fields
must be present in the input file. If not being used, enter values of none as shown above.

Step 2. Specifying User Attributes for pushback, bench and destination:

This step is done under the Attributes Tab on the IP-Cut Design Dialogue in MineSight IP. The
user only has to specify the name of an attribute to use for storing pushback, bench and destination
information. The valid text type values will be entered automatically from the cycle time file during Step 3.
 U S E R S C O N F E R E N C E 1 4 - 1 5 O C T O B E R 2 0 0 3

Step 3. Running the Equipment Setup Python Script (eqsetup.py):

The eqsetup.py script is used to specify equipment information to be used by MineSight IP. This script
only has to be run once because the equipment information entered via the script is saved for use in all
subsequent MineSight IP runs. Only run it again if you want to change or add values associated with the
equipment.The user should pick eqsetup.py as one of the additional scripts under the Scripts Tab on
the IP-Cut Design Dialogue in MineSight IP.

Clicking the button for this script will bring up the following four dialogues:

1. Cycletime File Dialogue

Comments:
Click the Choose box and pickup an existing cycle time file
 U S E R S C O N F E R E N C E 1 4 - 1 5 O C T O B E R 2 0 0 3

Check the Use Productivity (tons/hr) box if you will be entering Equipment Effi ciency factors
in units of tonnes/hr instead of per cents.
Period Length entered is the product of the number of days in the short-term planning period times
the number of operating hours per day. For example 168 hours is based on a 7 day planning period
times 24 operating hours per day.

2. Equipment Setup Dialogue

The first thing to do is specify the names of the truck types and shovel types you are using plus
operating parameters associated with each. Optional auxiliary equipment can also be specified. See
below:
 U S E R S C O N F E R E N C E 1 4 - 1 5 O C T O B E R 2 0 0 3

Cycle File Index value of 2 shown above means that the cycle times for the 300 Tonne truck are in the
column associated with the second truck in the cycle time ASCII file.

The second step is match-up truck types and shovel types into specific equipment sets and assign a
loading time (in minutes) for each equipment set. In the example shown below 3 equipment sets have
been specified:
Set 1: 240 tonne trucks loaded by rope shovels with loading time of 2.5 minutes
Set 2: 300 tonne trucks loaded by rope shovels with loading time of 3.5 minutes
Set 3: 240 tonne trucks loaded by Front-end loaders with loading time of 5.0 minutes.
Front end loaders are not matched to 300 tonne trucks.
 U S E R S C O N F E R E N C E 1 4 - 1 5 O C T O B E R 2 0 0 3

3. Destination Mapping Dialogue

First select the user-defined attribute to use for automatically storing the bench, pushback, and
destination for the cut in the AGDM. (The attribute names in the pull-down list must be pre-specified
under the Attributes tab in the IP Cut Design Dialogue; see Step 2).
 U S E R S C O N F E R E N C E 1 4 - 1 5 O C T O B E R 2 0 0 3

Next, pick the destination where you want to send each material type and specify the equipment set to
use for each material. Click the Parse box to populate the pull-down list of destinations with names
extracted from the cycle time file. If unique destinations are not related to cutoffs then pick the
maximum value for To Cutoff and all cutoffs in between From Cutoff and To Cutoff will be
automatically entered with the same destination and equipment set.
 U S E R S C O N F E R E N C E 1 4 - 1 5 O C T O B E R 2 0 0 3

1. Reporting Dialogue:
The Reporting Dialogue is split up into three parts, User Attributes, Text Reports, and Viewer
Displays as shown below:

Currently, User Attributes for automatic database storage of Truck Hours and Shovel Hours for each
cut are available. The attribute names to use here must be pre-specified under the Attributes tab in the
IP Cut Design Dialogue.
 U S E R S C O N F E R E N C E 1 4 - 1 5 O C T O B E R 2 0 0 3

For Text Reporting select a type of report from the pulldown list and then enter a file name. For
viewer displays enter a Plot Type from the pulldown list and a Location for where to place the
cuts equipment usage information. These location choices are in relation to the centroid of the cut. A
MineSight geometry object will be created at this location containing the text information.
 U S E R S C O N F E R E N C E 1 4 - 1 5 O C T O B E R 2 0 0 3

Step 4. Running the Equipment Reporting Python Script

(equipment.py)
The equipment.py script will calculate and report the following equipment information: Truck
Hours and Number of Trucks by Period, Cut, Material type and cutoff within a cut. Shovel Hours
and Number of Shovels by Period, Cut, Material type and cutoff within a cut. In addition this script
will also populate the AGDM database with the following information:
The user defined variables for Pushback, Bench, Destination, Truck Hours and
Shovels Hours for each cut will be assigned the correct values.Note: If the cut contains
multiple material types with multiple destinations, then the Destination information
will be incomplete (see Number 2 below for resolution of this situation). These user
defined variables and their values can be found in the GEOMSEGMENTVFD table in
the database.
Populate the standard database variables (i.e., already setup in the empty
database provided by MINTEC, inc.) in Table IPRESERVES for storage of Truck Hours
by Material Type and Cutoff, Shovel Hours by Material Type and Cutoff, and
Destination by Material Type and Cutoff.The user will pick equipment.py as one of
the additional scripts under the Scripts Tab on the IP-Cut Design Dialogue in
MineSight IP.
 U S E R S C O N F E R E N C E 1 4 - 1 5 O C T O B E R 2 0 0 3

To run equipment.py a cut must be current or open. This can either be a new cut prior to saving it or an
existing cut that you re-open. To illustrate the calculation, reporting and database updating functions a new
cut (A-1) on the 2630 bench in Pushback1 is designed for Period 1 as shown below:
 U S E R S C O N F E R E N C E 1 4 - 1 5 O C T O B E R 2 0 0 3

Prior to saving this cut click on the Go button for the equipment.py script and the following report will
appear on the screen:

The calculation of Equipment Hours is done with the following formulas:

 U S E R S C O N F E R E N C E 1 4 - 1 5 O C T O B E R 2 0 0 3

Truck hours = Tonnes/tonnes per trip * (load time + cycletime per trip)/60min per hour/(
truck effi ciency/100)

Shovel hours = Tonnes/tonnes per trip * load time per trip/60 min per hour/( shovel effi
ciency/100)

The calculation of numbers of trucks and shovels is done with the following formulas:

Available hours per truck = Period length in hours * (truck availability/100)

Available hours per shovel = Period length in hours * (shovel availability/100)
Number of trucks = Truck Hours/ Avail. Hours per truck
Number of shovels = Shovel hours / avail. Hours per shovel

For a screen display of the equipment information for cut A-1, specify a MSR geometry object at the prompt
and the following text will appear on the screen:

Since this text information is in an editable minesight geometry object, it can be moved, portions deleted,
etc. Note that the script can also be modified to customize the plotted result. When you save this cut, the
following equipment information is written to the IPRESERVES Table in the AGDM .
 U S E R S C O N F E R E N C E 1 4 - 1 5 O C T O B E R 2 0 0 3

As you add cuts, the reports and database are continuously updated as illustrated below with cut A-2 and
A-3 on bench 2630

Updated text report from running equipment.py again, but excluding A-3:
 U S E R S C O N F E R E N C E 1 4 - 1 5 O C T O B E R 2 0 0 3

Updated screen display:Updated IPRESERVES Table in AGDM:

Conclusion
This paper has presented the current capabilities of the Equipment Reporting functions in MineSight IP for
mining cuts. The Equipment Reporting function is still under development in MineSight version 3.3. In
addition to what is presented in this paper, truck haulage simulation to generate haul cycle times along
user selected profiles in MineSight is scheduled to be included in MineSight version 3.3. Any
suggestions from the users on what else they would like to see in MineSight IP Equipment reporting will
be appreciated.