ABSTRACT
We consider a short-term production scheduling problem in a German potash underground mine where drill-and-blast mining operations have to be assigned to machines and workers and scheduled simultaneously. In addition, several mining-specific requirements have to be taken into account. In order to solve the problem at hand, we propose a two-stage solution approach. In the first stage, we apply a mixed-integer linear program where some time-consuming restrictions are neglected. Afterward, we modify the obtained schedule by integrating the necessary time intervals that were dismissed within the mathematical model. Since an existing heuristic solution procedure for the same problem is currently in use in a German potash mine, we will present results for computational experiments conducted on problem instances derived from real-world data in order to evaluate the performance of the two solution approaches.
