Creating The 'Mill's KRAs Derivative Calculator' In MS Excel From Historical Production Data

In a production operation/facility, there are internal customers and suppliers, whose requirements must be strived to be met. This focus on meeting the requirements of the customer is the first of the seven (7) core principles of ISO9001 Quality Management Systems.

In the mining process the internal customer relationship is: mine is the supplier to the crusher, crusher is the customer of the mine; crusher is the supplier of the mill, mill is the customer of the crusher; mine is the supplier of both the crusher and the mill, both the crusher and the mill are the customers of the mine.

Each of these customers have set production deliverables and expectations that the suppliers must meet. The optimum Ore Blend is a deliverable of the mining function which the milling function should demand and pull that value from the miners. To do this, the millers need visibility on the type of Ore Blend that should optimize production at the mill as per the production budget constraints.

Would it help Metallurgists downstream at the Mill, if given the ore blend composition by the Miners and Geologist, they could look up history to determine the expected Mill's vital few KRAs (Key Result Areas) in: Mill Throughput; Flotation Concentrate Tonnes; Copper and Gold Feed Grades; and Metal Recoveries?

An 'Ore Blend Calculator', using the most recent production data from 1/09/2023 to 31/08/2024, is now created in MS Excel to model the production budget constraints. See link hereunder for further details on creating this 'Ore Blend Calculator'.

This 'Ore Blend Calculator' is intended to be a quick ‘what if’ scenario ‘calculator’ where the users enter the ore composition and the production budget constraints of: Mill Throughput, Flotation Concentrate Tonnes, Cu & Au Mill Feed Grades and Cu & Au Recoveries are derived from historical production records. Having visibility on these mill's derivatives, the mill's vital few budget KRAs are then plugged into the second part of the 'Ore Blend Calculator' to obtain the optimum 'Ore Blend' to deliver the Budget Production which is automatically returned to a one-pager summary dashboard.

This calculator model is developed with that modelling in view.

Once you know what the ore composition and the likely mill's KRAs outcomes are, then you are in a knowledgeable position to input more realistic ‘budget constraints’ without veering too far off the mark and making over promises. You can demand your supplier (mine) that if you get the ore in that blend composition, you can meet your targets.

If millers can draw value by demanding the right blend from miners, I think it will help a lot with creating value for the entire mining operations.

So this ‘Ore Blend Calculator’ for modelling ‘what if’ scenarios was developed based on production data set that has been diligently collected for 366 days from Sep 2023 - Aug 2024 to provide visibility in the value created in a part of the mining process SIPOCR (Supplier Input Process Output Customer Requirement).

Consider this as part of Business Improvement’s development of tools/programs to increase process efficiencies especially in modelling ‘what if scenarios’ and decision making.

The ‘calculator’ is based on 366 days of historical production numbers collated from September 2023 through to August 2024. This was also the period when the 3R (Restore, Reset and Reinvigorate) Strategy was implemented and we did well in turning the production number around and this calculator is base on ‘What Good Looks Like’ in that period.

The calculator is a 3-Step Process.

How To Use The Calculator

Step 1: Given the mine's ore blend and mill's vital few KRAs for the budget period.

Step 2: Plug in the Proportions of Ore in tab ‘Ore Blends Deriving Mill’s KRAs’ to get the Derived Mill’s ‘Vital Few’ KRAs.

Step 3: To achieve the budget Mill’s Vital Few KRAs you plug them into the tab ‘Ore Blend for Budget Compliance’ to show you the proportions of ore to blend to give you the budgeted Mill’s Vital Few KRAs.

Given that we are expecting marginal ore from 2028+ where mill throughput will depend on ore types, this calculator will be handy based on our own production data.

Our data has shown negative correlation coefficient for all ore types in our ore body in respect to mill throughput except for Sulphide Skarn, Monzonite Pophyry and Monzodiorite. This negative correlation simply means that when there is less of these materials, throughput increases. So increasing the proportions of ore with the positive correlation coefficients (i.e. Sulphide Skarn, Monzonite Pophyry and Monzodiorite) in the ore blend that is feed to the mill will increase the mill throughput. While these relationships are not strong, it is an indication of how the ores influence the mill throughput.

The metallurgist have a detail bottom up approach to calculate mill throughput based on the drill core samples but base on a pragmatic approach with the historical production data we have on hand, this 'Ore Blend Calculator' will be handy as an efficient tool to draw and maximise value from the suppliers of ore to the mill to benefit the mining operation.