Importance

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Abstract

This disclosure concerns techniques for monitoring and controlling mining operations, notably oil sands mining that involves trucks and shovels. The process can include monitoring key mining performance indicators (KMPI) comprising truck operating parameters; shovel operating parameters; and workforce performance parameters, and then controlling the trucks and the shovels based on a pre-developed model comprising the KMPI. The workforce performance parameters of shift change duration can be determined in various ways, such as determining a base shift change duration based on a shift-change code and adding to it a supplementary shift change duration based on certain additional stationary-state codes; and/or determining truck cycle times during a pre-determined time interval spanning the corresponding shift change, determining a longest truck cycle, determining an average truck cycle which excludes the longest truck cycle; and determining the shift change duration based on a difference between the longest truck cycle and the average truck cycle.

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First Claim