Fleet imbalance and the impact on production

CIM Bulletin, Vol. 73, No. 818, 1980

JEAN-LUG COLLINS, Canstar Oil Sands Ltd., Calgary, Alberta

The paper deals with the impact of fleet imbalance on a deterministic evaluation of shovel fleet productive capacity. It shows that if the fleet imbalance is overlooked, then estimated fleet productive capacity will be overrated.The paper shows that fleet imbalance inflates utilization, and care must be taken when using such statistics which are derived from reported field-equipment-hows. It shows that the utilization must be deflated by a factor called 'balancing efficiency' in order to estimate shovel productive capacity correctly. The paper also shows how fleet imbalance can be controlled by managing idle time or downtime in an actual operation.The technique used for measuring the balancing efficiency factor is based on statistical analysis of equipment utilization.

Mots Clés: Open-Pit mining, Fleet imbalance, Production, Trucks, Shovels, Operating efficiency, Equipment.