Summary: LKAB’s Kiruna Mine, located in northerns Sweden, produces about 24 million tons of iron ore yearly using an underground mining method known as sublevel caving. To aid in its ore mining and processing system, Kiruna has adapted the use of several types of multi-period production scheduling models that have some distinguishing characteristics, for example: (i) specific rules governing the way in which the ore is extracted from the mine; (ii) lack of an inventory holding policy, and (iii) decisions that are not explicitly cost-based. In this chapter, we review two models in use at Kiruna and three techniques we have employed to expedite solution time, support the efficacy of these techniques with numerical results, and provide a corresponding discussion.
For the entire collection see [Zbl 1089.90024].