GEMS Production Scheduler Tutorial

Revision Date: Dec, 2005

PREPARED BY

Gemcom Software International Inc.

1100 1066 West Hastings Street
Tel: 604.684.6550
Vancouver, BC V6E 3X1
Fax: 604.684.3541
Canada
www.gemcomsoftware.com

PREPARED FOR

Newmont USA Limited

Mining Services Department
10101 East Dry Creek Road
Englewood, CO 80112
USA
www.newmont.com

Tel: 303.708.4321
Fax: 303.708.4343

Table of Contents
Course Details......................................................................................................4
Course Description............................................................................................4
Course Prerequisites.........................................................................................4
Expected Outcomes..........................................................................................4
Introduction........................................................................................................5
Summary of Steps.............................................................................................6
Before You Start....................................................................................................7
Open your project..............................................................................................7
Set up a Production Scheduler Scenario workspace........................................8
Decide on the activities you would like to schedule and the rates....................9
Create a new scenario........................................................................................12
Create a new scenario.....................................................................................12
Select objects to schedule, set activity types and map tables........................12
Define the activity types................................................................................15
Add the activity types....................................................................................19
Set up Properties and Units for Attributes..........................................................22
Adding Attributes.................................................................................................25
Returning to GEMS from Production Scheduler.................................................26
Change the View in Production Scheduler.........................................................27
Spreadsheet View:...........................................................................................27
Sort..................................................................................................................27
Change the Column order............................................................................28
Filter display based on attribute values........................................................28
Igantt View:......................................................................................................29
View by different time interval.......................................................................29
3D View.........................................................................................................30
Show all or selected objects only.................................................................30
Background colour........................................................................................30
String versus Rendered display....................................................................31
Set Object Colour Schemes.........................................................................32
Defining Resources............................................................................................33
Adding a resource............................................................................................33
Assigning Resources to an activity..................................................................35
Removing a Resources from an activity..........................................................36
Define Calendars................................................................................................37
About Calendars..............................................................................................37
Project and Resource calendars.....................................................................37
Base calendars................................................................................................37
Defining Calendars..........................................................................................39
Define the Project Calendar.........................................................................40
Define a Resource Calendar........................................................................41
Scheduling Adding Precedences.....................................................................43
About Precedences.........................................................................................43
Adding Precedences........................................................................................43
Set Precendences manually using Igantt.....................................................43
Set Precendences manually using Visualisation..........................................44
Sequence mode.........................................................................................44

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Branch mode.............................................................................................45
Autogenerate precedences..........................................................................46
Set Precedences using a Script.........................................................................49
Activity Type Precedences...............................................................................49
Sequence by attribute......................................................................................50
Viewing the schedule.......................................................................................51
Scheduling - Adding Resources.........................................................................52
Visually Assigning Resources..........................................................................52
View by Resource............................................................................................53
Level Resources..............................................................................................54
Define a Report View..........................................................................................55
Creating Report Items......................................................................................56
Create a Report Item....................................................................................56
Set Report Constraints.................................................................................57
Add a Report Item for Tonnes Loaded on Bench 305:.............................57
Add a report item to the existing Default Report:.........................................58
Create a New Report....................................................................................60
Setting Advanced Time Periods....................................................................61
Display a Summary Report..............................................................................62
Colour by Time Period..................................................................................63
Change the order/hide selected reports.......................................................64
Adding Attributes to report on.......................................................................64
EXPRESSIONS..................................................................................................65
Example: Recovered Gold...............................................................................66

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GEMS Production Scheduler Tutorial

Course Details
Course Description
The Production Scheduling course is a three day introductory course designed
for mining engineers and mine planners who are responsible for the design and
scheduling of a mine.
Although mining principles are reviewed, primarily it is designed for experienced
mining engineers and mine planners.
Course Prerequisites
GEMS Foundation course, GEMS Pit Design course as well as a strong
understanding of the following concepts:
GEMS concepts (profile editors, loading of objects, workspaces, etc.)
GEMS data objects: block models, solids, surfaces (not so much of how
they are created, but knowledge of different types and their use, etc).
Grade elements and rock codes
Expected Outcomes
Upon completion of this course, the student will be able to accomplish the
following:
Transfer mine sequence polygons to Production Scheduler
Use the Production Scheduler module to create Gantt charts for the mine
schedule
Report scheduled tonnages from the GEMS database

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Introduction
Production Scheduler helps you prepare activity-based or resource-based
schedules. You can schedule long-term and short-term production activities for
your open pit and underground mines using data objects (eg stopes, drives, xcuts and blast outlines) stored in tin, tunnel and polygon workspaces. While
scheduling, GEMS integrates a Gantt chart, a 3D view of your data, and
spreadsheet views of your production schedule.
This tutorial provides step-by-step directions on how to set up and use
production scheduler for an open pit mine. If you wish, you can use the data
provided in the GEMS Project called ProdSched_OC553 (stored in
ProdSched_OC553_StartTute.zip file). It contains a POLYGON workspace
called BlastPolys which contains blast outlines for an open cut:

In this tutorial, you will:

Create a scenario workspace called PitScenarios to store different

scheduling scenarios.

Set up a scenario (schedule) called MainPit1 within the PitScenarios

workspace.

Schedule the blast Drilling and Loading activities for the sequence of
polygons, and add resources.

Produce various types of reports for different time frames.

Learn about expressions.

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Summary of Steps
Use this summary of steps to tick off your progress as you go.
Production Scheduling Summary of Steps
Set up your project tree, open and view the objects you will be scheduling
and familiarize yourself with their attributes.
Create a scenario workspace to store your production plans
Add new tables to the Polygon workspace for storing each activitys
scheduling results (eg DRIL_SCHED, LOAD_SCHED =
PolyScenarioTables in the Polygon workspace)
Create and set up a new scenario:
- create scenario and add to project tree
-

select objects to schedule

set up activity types (eg Drill and Load, etc)

select activities for each object

map workspace tables for storing the schedule results for each
activity

Set up Properties and Units for Activities

Change the Production Scheduler View:
- Sort
-

Change column order

Use filters for record display

Select different time interval in Igantt view, and different background

colour

Set display options for string and rendered objects

Set object colour schemes

Set up Resources
Set up Calendars
Schedule
- Add Precedences (manually in Igantt, manually by Visualisation,
autogenerate and use script)
View Schedule in 3D
Create and View a report
- define report items
-

set up report

select report to display

Resources
- Add a resource
-

Allocate a resource using a variety of methods

Set up and calculate an Expression

Add a new attribute

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Before You Start

Open your project
If you wish to use the training data set provided, follow the directions below to
copy the project onto your computer:

Create a /GemcomProjects directory if one does not already exist

Unzip ProdSched_OC553Project_StartTute.zip into the GemcomProjects
directory
In GEMS, open the Project GemcomDemo/ProdSched_OC553

Set up your project tree as follows:

Open the BlastPolys workspace and familiarize yourself with the polygons

levels and attributes that you will be scheduling.

Open the BlastPolys workspace with the Spreadsheet Editor. Observe the
ATTRIBUTES table and note the LEVEL, GRADES, DENSITY, VOLUME,
etc attributes for each polygon.

Close the workspace editor.

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Before you begin scheduling, you must:

Set up a Production Scheduler Scenario workspace

Set up a productions scheduler scenario workspace by accepting the

defaults for Scenario Workspace/Production scheduler sub type.

Add the workspace to the project tree:

A production scheduler workspace can store many different scenarios,

eg:
In this example, 2 production scenarios, PLAN1 and
PLAN2 are stored in the workspace called
DemScenarios. They are both shown on the project
tree after opening the workspace.

This is also where you can set up naming rules if you wish.

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 Select the Name of the Scenario workspace to add:

The workspace will now be shown in the Project Tree:

Decide on the activities you would like to schedule and the rates
For the training data set provided, you will be using the following activities:
Main Pit Activities
Drilling (DRILL) drill metres

Rate = 10m/hour?

Loading (LOAD) Volume of material loaded

Rate = 600m3/hour

Common activities for an open pit could consist of Drill, Blast, Dig, Load, etc.

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Add tables to the Polygon workspace to store scheduling results for each
activity
***This step is for jet 4 databases only, as it is done automatically for SQL datasets**
You must add additional tables for each activity to be scheduled in the Polygon
workspace. GEMS uses these tables to store the scheduling results for each
activity. In this case, we are assigning the activities DRILL and LOAD to the
polygons, therefore we need to add both a DRIL_SCHED and a
LOAD_SCHED table (user defined names) as follows:

Select Workspace>Create or Modify

workspace
Open the BlastPolys workspace
Add a new table (eg. DRIL_SCHED) and
select Table Type Polygon Scenario Table

The following fields will automatically be added:

Now add another table for the loading activity (i.e. LOAD_SCHED) in the
same way.

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You should now have the following scheduling results tables in your polygon
workspace:

Repeat the step above for extra activity types if required.

Save the workspace, and Exit the workspace editor.

Note: You can add more activities if required later, but you must remember
to add the results destination tables for each activity added.

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Create a new scenario

After creating a scenario workspace (for storing different scenarios) and adding
it to the project tree, you are now ready to create a new scenario which
involves:
Selecting the objects (polygons) to schedule
Setting up activity types (eg Drill and Load, etc)
Assigning activities to each object type (polygon).
Mapping the workspace tables used for storing the scheduling results.
Directions are provided below:
Create a new scenario

Right click on the scenario workspace, and select New Scenario:

Select objects to schedule, set activity types and map tables

The next step is to select objects to schedule, set activity types (eg Dev, Drill,
Muck, Fill, etc) and map tables for storing the scheduled results for each
activity.
The Scenarios Properties screen appears with the General, Activities to
Schedule and Values to Schedule tabs:

Under the General tab, enter the Scenario Name and Description:

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 Click on the Activities to Schedule tab.

Click on the

button to select the objects to schedule. This

opens the Add Scheduling Objects screen.

Press the

button to select the objects that you wish to schedule.

For the training data set, you will select the Polygon workspace called
BlastPolys.

Click the Open button, and select the polygons you want to schedule
(Select All in this case):

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 Press OK. The following screen will appear:

Select the polygons that you want to add activity types to. Select All if
using the demo training workspace

Click the

activities button at the bottom of the screen. The

following screen will appear:

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At the moment, the activity type is undefined, so the next step is to define
activities, then associate the activity with each polygon as follows:

Define the activity types

Click the Activity Types button

The Activities to Add screen appears:
This list of activity types is blank, as we
have not created any activities yet.

Click the Add Activity Types button

(you might have to wait a moment
while the Production Scheduler
software opens).
The Activity Type Manager screen will
appear. This is where you add activity
groups and types.

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 Click on the New Activity Type Group button.

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 Enter the Name and Code, then click OK.

In this project, we will have only one activity group. An example of where you
would have more than one activity type group is shown below:

An Activity is a physical process or major process that occurs in a mining

operation.
An Activity Type is the type of work that you can assign to individual scheduling
objects, to identify activities.
A blast polygon has drilling, blasting and loading activities. A stope solid has
drilling, blasting and mucking activities associated with it.
You can organise you activity types into Activity Groups.

We will now add the activities to the Main Pit activity group:
Main Pit Activities
Drilling (DRILL) drill metres

Rate = 30m/day.

Loading (LOAD) Volume of material loaded

Rate = 400m3/hour

See next page for directions:

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 Right click on the Main Pit activity group, and click the New Activity Type
button and enter the following:

.
Click on the Attributes tab, click the Add button to list attributes that you
may want to report on later for this activity.
An Attribute is a quantity, quality, or property that you use to define types of
work, such as metres, volume or tonnes. You assign these attributes to activity
types to set up which values you want to schedule, track, and report for activities
of that type. Attributes can be alphanumeric text, integers, or decimal numbers.

Enter the Default Value for each attribute, and check the Apply to
Activities check box if you want to apply the default to the activities.

This is not exactly how the screen will look, this has been altered to show
what attributes to select. You will have to use the scroll bar to see these
after adding them,

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 Click Next or click on the Quantity Attribute tab

Quantity Attributes
An activity can have a single
quantity attribute. The quantity
attribute is the attribute upon which
rate is based. Examples are tonnes
or metres.
A default rate can be specified for
each activity type. When new
activities are defined (and before
resources are allocated), this
default rate is used in conjunction
with the value of the quantity
attribute to determine the duration
of the activity.

Select the Quantity attribute, and Default Rate, and check the box if you
want to apply the default rate to existing activities.

Click OK to return to the Activity Type manager.

Right click on the Main Pit activity group, and click the New Activity Type
button and enter the following for the loading attribute:

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Your screen should now look similar to the one below:

The details you entered for the activity that is highlighted on the left hand side of
the screen are displayed on the right hand side of the screen. You can Edit
activities by clicking on the Edit Button. You can also Remove, Move Up and
Move Down the activity on the tree at any time.

Add the activity types

When you have finished entering the activity types, click OK to return to
the Activities to Add box. Place a tick against the activities that you want
to add to each of the previously selected polygons. In this case, tick both
DRILL and LOAD activities.

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 Click OK to continue.

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 Click OK to return to the Scenario Properties screen

NOTE: If required you can expand the intervals listing for each object, highlight
an Object and/or activity and press the Add/Remove
buttons to add and remove OBJECTS, or you can press the
to edit the ACTIVITY TYPES for each polygon.

button

Press the Values to Schedule tab and map the workspace tables for each
object/activity type as follows:

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 Press OK to continue.
Save the Scenario

You have now finished selecting the polygons you want to schedule and
associated the activities DRILL and LOAD with each polygon. You now need to
set up the Properties and Units for each activity type, and mapped the tables

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Set up Properties and Units for Attributes

The next step is to define each attributes properties and units. For example:
ATTRIBUTE NAME
T_INTERVAL_LENGTH
VOLUME
TONNAGE
AU
AU_P
CU
CU_P
AS
AS_P

UNIT
M
m3
tonnes
g/t
AU_Metal
%
CU_Metal
%
AS_Metal

PROPERTY
No
No
No
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes

An attribute can be a property or non-property attribute.

If an activity is divided into sub-activities, the role of a property attribute (eg,
grades, ore-types) is to specify that the attribute value remains as is in all subactivities.
If an attribute is a non-property attribute, then the attributes values will be
apportioned to sub-activities according to proportions of the sub-activity division.
eg A 100,000 t @ 10g/t stope is divided into 2 as follows:
-30,000t @ 10g/t
-70,000t@ 10g/t
The grade stays the same since it is a property attribute.
The volume and tonnes change as they are non-property attributes.

Typical uses of attributes include:

Representing physicals
Tonnes (non-property), Grade (property), Development length
Representing spatial\positional information
Level (property), Bench (property), Pit (Property), Strip (Property), Layer (Property)
Representing financial information

Open the Main Pit Scenario if not already done so.

Select Update Schedule to load the production
scheduler (wait as this may take a few moments).

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 The GEMS Production Scheduler screen will open. Select

Project>Project Attributes from the menu:

Highlight an attribute, and press the Edit button to edit the Unit and Type
for that attribute. Eg

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 Edit the Unit and Type for each of the attributes in the list. The list should
look similar to the one shown below:

Notice that you can also hide columns setting the Hidden attribute to Yes. You
can also change the order of the columns by using the Move Up and Move
Down Keys.

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Adding Attributes
If you ever need to add a new attribute, do NOT do it in the interface above. You
must add the new attribute to the appropriate table in the workspace using
GEMS, then edit the attributes Properties and Units in the Production Scheduler
interface.
For instance:

Adding Tunnel attributes:

To add a new attribute for tunnel development, you must add the new
attribute as a field in the SINTERVAL table in the Tunnel workspace.

Adding Blast Polygon and Stope solid attributes:

To add a new attribute for polygons or solids, you must:
Add the new attribute as a field in the ATTRIBUTES table in the
DemoStopes TIN workspace.
Update the SCENARIO properties, Values to Schedule with the new
attributes.

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Returning to GEMS from Production Scheduler

If at any time you wish to return to GEMS, select File>Return to GEMS and
answer the questions:

Dont forget to Save your workspace:

To reopen the Production Scheduler, simply right click on the Schedule,

and select Update Schedule

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Change the View in Production Scheduler

There are many ways to configure the screen and column layout in the GEMS
Production Scheduler. This section will cover some of the more common ways
to display and filter data.
3D view
You can render, zoom in/out, rotate, hide
objects, change the background colour
and switch the view.

Spreadsheet View:
You can filter the data shown,
sort, hide, and move columns.

Gantt chart View:

Shows the relationship between
tasks over time. You can divide
into different time intervals

Spreadsheet View:

Sort
Sort by attribute by right clicking on the attribute name, select SORT and how
you want to sort.

You can also just click once on the Attribute label, to toggle the sort from
Ascending to Descending.

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Change the Column order

Change the order of the displayed attributes by going to Project>Project
Attributes, then highlight the attribute and press the Move Up and Move Down
Keys. You can also hide columns by selecting the Edit button and setting the
Hidden attribute to Yes.

For practice, move the BENCH to the top of the Project Attributes list and move
the Object ID down to get the following view:

Filter display based on attribute values

Filter on BENCH, by highlighting the BENCH column heading, right clicking and
selecting ChangeFilter, then choosing a bench ID
.

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Notice that the column heading

changes to Blue, to show that a
filter has been applied.

To reset to No Filter, right click on LEVEL, select Change Filter and click the
Cancel button. This will remove the filter.
Igantt View:

View by different time interval

Right click on the time intervals at the top of the Gantt chart, and select Level,
Day to view by Day:

Click the Earliest Entry button to view the beginning of the schedule:

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3D View
Select Visualisation>View>Switch View and see what happens. Switch back
again:

Show all or selected objects only

If you wish to see only those objects displayed in the list after applying filters,
etc, click Visualisation>View>Show all objects so that their tick is turned off:

Background colour
Use the same menu to change the Background Colour.

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String versus Rendered display

Select Visualisation/String Rendering and select Surfaces Always - this
converts all polygon strings in the visualization to surfaces.

Choosing Surfaces always for polygons, makes it easier to select the polygon in
3D view later on when scheduling. It lets you select the polygon by clicking inside the
polygon to select it, rather than having to click on the line edge.

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Set Object Colour Schemes

Select Visualisation>Set Object Colour Scheme

Select Colour by Attribute Value from the picklist, tick Show Legend,
select BENCH from the picklist, Select Value, select All activity types.
Click the Add Colour and Edit colour buttons to fill in the values below:

Click OK to continue.

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Defining Resources
An activity may require the services of a resource in order to be completed.
Resources can have differing usage capacities, and activities can have different
usage requirements.
Adding a resource

Select Resources>Edit Resources

Press the Add button

Enter the following:

Name: Name for the resource, eg Shovel 1, Rig 1
Capacity: Maximum work rate or maximum number of simultanouse
activities (activities that can be carried out at one time).
Rate: The rate at which work can be carried out (eg Drilling at 30m/hour)
Calendar: Select an existing calendar or generate a new calendar (see
section on calendars for more information).

Notice that you can Add, Edit and Remove calendars via the Resources

screen.
Click the OKay button to save the resource.

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 For the demo set provided, follow the directions above to create four
resources as follows:

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Assigning Resources to an activity

There are 3 methods of assigning resources to an activity:

1- Select Resources>Assign Resources, select the Resource, then the
activity type and the activities that will be completed by that resource (use the
>, <, and >> buttons to help choose/remove activities.

eg.
You can use the filter on activities, and press the Select All icon for filtered
activities, then assign resource to add them to multiple (selected) activities at
once.
2- Select the activity/activities on the Gantt chart, and right click on them to
show a pop-up menu. From this menu, select Allocate Resource:

.
Select the resource and usage, and press the Add Resource button.
Practice adding resources using both the methods above, and then remove
them by following the directions in the next section.
3-Visually assigning resources see the section Scheduling Resources.
For more detailed information, read the iGantt Help on Resources:

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Removing a Resources from an activity

There are 2 methods of removing resources to an activity:

1- Select Resources>Assign Resources, select the Resource, then the
resource. Highlight the activities you wish to remove and press the <
button.

2- Select the activities on the Gantt chart and right click to display the popup menu, select Allocate Resource.

Select the Resource and press the Remove Resource button.

Remove all the assigned resources using both the methods above. You
will reset these later on.

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Define Calendars
About Calendars
Calendars are used to define workable time both
globally (for the entire operation) and locally in terms of
specific resources.
The default project calendar corresponds to 24
hours/day, 7 days/week. If your operation is different to
this, you need to change your default calendar.
The calendar function allows you set the companys
working hours, resource availability and staff holidays when preparing a
schedule. All activities that depend on that calendar will not be worked on during
non-workable times, such as holidays.
Project and Resource calendars
There are two types of calendars:
Project calendars contain project wide work times.
For example, a business might run on a standard five-day working week
calendar, whereby all staff in general operates to this calendar. This calendar
would also incorporate public holidays, if applicable, and other times where the
work site as a whole would not be working
Resource calendars- each resource may have its own calendar, since
resources may have special requirements. Machinery may have maintenance
times and staff may have holiday leave during which no work is completed.
During scheduling, a resource calendar is compared with the Project Calendar,
and any workable time that lies outside the Project Calendar is ignored. i.e. The
Project Calendars non-workable time is treated as a hard limit for any other
calendars in the project.
Both project and resource calendars are derived from a base calendar.
Base calendars
Base calendars are used to define basic working
patterns.
By default, there are 3 base calendars:
24 hours, 7 days

Standard working week

Empty
You will most likely edit one or more of these base
calendars, or create new base calendars. To do
this:
Select Project>Edit Base Calendars and view
the current base calendars. Notice that you can
Edit, Delete or Create new base calendars.

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You can choose either Simple or Advanced mode to edit the calendars:

Simple mode allows you to select which days of the week are worked, and
the hours worked during a normal workday.

Use Advanced mode if you wish individual days of the week to have
different workable times.

This mode gives each day of the week a separate list of working times.
If you switch back to simple mode, you will need to pick on day to use as a
template for all days. All other days times will be then be lost.

Create a new base calendar and call it Training. Set up the working days
for Monday to Wednesday only.

Practice using the other options.

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Defining Calendars
Project and Resource calendars are defined in the same way. The first step to
defining a calendar is to choose a parent (base) calendar that the new calendar
will be derived from.

The drop box in the top right corner of the window contains a list of existing
calendars and base calendars that may be used as a parent. When one of
these calendars is selected, the calendar diagram in the center of the window
will change to reflect the new parent calendar.
To edit the workable time for a day, the day is selected by clicking on the
calendar diagram. August 4, 2005 has been selected in the image above, and it
is defined as a 24hr working day. Multiple days may be selected at once by
holding down the Ctrl or Shift keys while clicking.
The workable time may be changed by adjusting the start and finish times of the
periods listed in the Time Intervals box and extra intervals may be added and
removed using the Add and Remove buttons. If the Default tick box is ticked,
then the time intervals will be changed to match the parent calendars intervals
for that day.
If Non-Working is selected from the drop box adjacent to Default, then the
time intervals displayed in the Time Intervals box will be the non-workable time
rather than the workable time.
When the time intervals for a day are changed from the default, the day will be
underlined to show that it is handled differently than for the parent calendar. If a
day has any workable time, then day will be displayed with diagonal stripes.
Once the calendar has been defined, clicking Okay will close the window and
apply the calendar to the schedule.

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Define the Project Calendar

Select Project>Edit Project Calendar.

Read the instructions in the section above to create a new project calendar
called Main Pit calendar and set the 25th December as a non-working day
as follows:

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Define a Resource Calendar

During scheduling, a resource calendar is compared with the Project Calendar,
and any workable time that lies outside the Project Calendar is ignored. You can
edit a calendar or create a new resource calendar while editing a resource as
follows:
1. Select Resources>Edit Resources

2. Click the Edit button

3. Either:
Select a calendar and press the
Edit button.

Click the New button to create a

new calendar.

4. Click OK to save

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TIP: If Shovel 1 above had a regular Wednesday morning weekly

maintenance routine, then it would be better to create a new Base Calendar (eg
Wed morning maintenance) to reflect this regular pattern. You could then
choose that as the Base calendar above and edit for irregular maintenance
periods as required.
Eg Create a new base project calendar
called Wed morning maintenance, and
set it so that all days except for
Wednesday have start and finish times of
0:00 24:00 hours. Set Wednesday
hours for 12:00 -24:00 hours only.
Then edit the resource calendar for Shovel 1, using the calendar above as the
base calendar:

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Scheduling Adding Precedences

About Precedences
You can assign two types of precedences in iGantt:

Finish to Start the first activity must be

completed before the other can start.

Start to Start the first activity must begin

other can start

before the

A precedence may have a minimum lag time to enforce a

time delay between activities.
Adding Precedences
Precedences can be set either in the Gantt Chart, in the Visualisation, or set
automatically with regard to Geometry. In following exercises you will learn how
to do the following:
Add precedences manually in Igantt Chart view

Add precedences manually using Visualisation (both sequence and

branch mode)
Auto generate the precedences

Apply scripts

A brief description of each method will be covered first: Practise each as

you go, as you can remove these later on and start again.

Set Precendences manually using Igantt

Before precedences can be created in the Gantt chart, you
need to be in the Add Precedence mode.

Click the Add Precedence Mode icon.

LEFT click on the 1st activity activity - a small blue square should appear.
Whilst holding down the left mouse button, drag the mouse to the
beginning of the 2nd activity, a small red button will appear indicating that
you may release the mouse button.

Choose the minimum lag and type of precedence (Finish to Start).

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 Click OK and the precedence will be set.

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Set Precendences manually using Visualisation

Precedences may be set visually by selecting Visualisation>Mode>Manual
Precedences. This adds extra controls to iGantts toolbar, where you can
choose to use either sequence mode or branch mode, and apply to one activity
type or any activity type.

Sequence mode

Click on Visualisation>Mode>Manual Precedences.

An additional toolbar will appear in the top right hand corner:

You might want to apply a filter at

this stage to work on one bench
at a time, and turn off Show all objects, and set string rendering to
Surfaces Always (this allows you to click inside the polygon to select it)

Select Sequence mode, and Activity Type DRILL, then

click on the first activity in 3D view (it will turn green), hold
down the Ctrl key, and click on one or more objects hat
should be added to the end of the sequence. Each object
you click on will turn red, indicating it has been selected.
Click on it again if you wish to remove it from the
sequence.

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Click the Create Precedences button to set the precedences:

Branch mode
Branch mode allows precedences to be created from a single activity to a
number of activities. This is useful in situations where an activity needs to be
completed before a number of activities can commence.
Before you begin, clear the last set of precedences and move them back to the
Start Date:

Change to Branch mode, and select First type DRILL and following type
DRILL

Click on the start polygon (it will turn green), then hold down the control key and
clik on one or more objects that should be linked to the first by precedence.
Each object you control-click on will turn red (click again to unselect if required).

Click the Create Precedences button.

Check the precedences have been added correctly.

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Autogenerate precedences

The autogenerate precedences for surfaces assumes that your mine is a pit
composed of blast polygons.
When you select the auto-generate mode, you need to enter the following
parameters:

Bench tolerance: is the possible variation

of height on a single bench which ensures
that precedences are not created between
activities on a single bench.
Max Bench Height of a single bench
Bench Angle: the angle of slope. To ignore,
enter 90 degrees.
First and Second Type: select to restrict
precedences to only be between activities of
a certain type.
First type-> where the precedence comes
from
Second type> where the precedence goes to
eg We need to LOAD (1st type) the bench
above before we can DRILL (2nd t type)
below.
Only visible select to add precedences to
only those objects that are visible.
Lag

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You will now do an automatic precedence setting, so before that you should
remove all the precedences that have been set so far by:

Select Activities>Remove All Precedence, then Activities>Move All

Activities to Start Date. This allows us to start scheduling from afresh.

-This is also handy to know if you make a mistake, as you can clear your work
and start again.

Select Visualisation>Mode>Auto-generate Precedences>Surface

Turn off any filters so that all benches are displayed
A box will appear in the right hand corner of the toolbar:

Enter a tolerance of 0.25, 5m bench height, 45 degree Bench Angle.

Select LOAD as the first activity type (as the bench above needs to be
loaded first) and select the second activity type as DRILL. Enter a lag of
0.5 days.

Click the Generate Precedences button to set precedences.

This has set up global precedences to ensure that LOAD activities have been
completed on the bench above, before any DRILL activities for a certain bench
can start. You will now use a script to generate precedences for each polygon
so that DRILL activities start before LOAD activities (see next section).

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TIP: It is a good idea to use the autogenerate method for surfaces first to set global
precedences for LOAD and DRILL activities this will make sure that LOAD activities in
the benches above have been completed before the DRILL activities for a particular
bench. Once the global precedences have been set, you would then schedule bench by
bench using any of the other available methods.
Suggested scheduling for demo data set:
1) Autogenerate precedences for surfaces with LOAD as 1st activity and DRILL as
2nd activity
2) Use the Activity Sequence script to set DRILL activities before LOAD activities for
each blast.
3) Visually assign resources to schedule the sequence of each polygon on a bench.

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Set Precedences using a Script

Activity Type Precedences
You will now learn how to set precedences using a script, by adding
precedences for DRILL activities to occur before LOAD activities:
Make sure you have the following script on your computer before you start:

Select Tools>Run Script

Choose the First Activity type as DRIL

Select the Second Activity type as LOAD

Select precedence type

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 Enter Lag (0 days)

The schedule will now look something like this for DRILL and LOAD
activities:

Check that all precedences have been added correctly.

NOTE: You will now find this command (script) on the Tools>User
Commands>Activity Type Precedences the next time you open Production
scheduler, as once a script is run for the first time it is automatically put on the
User Command list for future use.

Sequence by attribute
Another script that could be quite useful if you have your polygons sequenced is
the Sequence from Attribute. This will not be covered in this tutorial.

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Viewing the schedule

Now would be a good time to view an animation of the scheduled objects to see
how things are going.

Turn off all filters and position polygons in 3D in order to see each bench
being mined.

Select Visualisation>View Schedule

Enter the appropriate details

below:
Today: click here to
reset the date
Step increment:
changes the
increments in which the
steps are made.
Show completed:
shows those activities
that have been
completed (good for
underground
animations
Show remaining:
shows activities that
have not been
completed (good for
open pit animations.

To run the animation, set the Viewing Date, to when you want to start the
animation and set the increment suitable enough to see the changes (this
may take some experimentation).

Press the Run button

NOTE: You can manually step through the schedule by using the up and down
buttons on the viewing date.

Fix up any scheduling errors that you may find. There may be a few as this
tutorial is designed to show you the different methods of assigning
precedendes, rather than getting the schedule to match a perfect mining
situation.

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Scheduling - Adding Resources

Visually Assigning Resources
Activities may be visually assigned to resources as follows:
Select Visualisation>Mode>Scheduling:

The following toolbar will appear:

Select the Earliest Start date if necessary, then the Activity Type and
Resource.
Check the Link box if you want to make precedences between blasts, if
not, activities will be lined up without precedence. Check the Partial box if
you want to share resources, you will get to the proportions in another
step.

A suggestion is to do one bench at a time, so in order to see things clearly,

apply filters, turn off Show All Objects, select String Rendering>Surfaces
Always (to make it easier to click on a polygon in the graphics area).

Select the polygon(s) (either from the Gantt chart or graphically) and press
the Assign button.
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NOTE: You can select one of more polygons. The order in which you
select them, will be the order that they are sequenced.
The polygon(s) activity will be assigned to the resource. If the resources
rate is not zero, it will be given to the activity.

If you previously checked the Partial box, you will be asked for the quantity
to assign to this resource for each blast polygon.

When assigning a previously unassigned activity to a resource, the activity

will be scheduled immediately after the last activity already assigned to
that resource. Activities that are already assigned to one or more
resources will not be moved backwards in time, but will be moved forward
or broken into subactivities as required.
View by Resource
You can switch the view to View by Resource, where the
Gantt chart will show a list of resource diagrams.
The activities assigned to a resource can be seen by
clicking the + sign on the left side of a resource diagram.
If a resource is running over capacity, this can be corrected
by spreading out overlapped activities at the point in time of over capacity. The
resource diagram will reflect the changes.

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Level Resources
The view by resource diagrams graph the usage of a resource over time. Red
peaks represent a resource running over capacity.

You can automatically level the resource utlisation by selecting

Resources>Level Resources. This will automatically
distribute the activities such that no resource is running over
capacity, with the precedences being honoured.
For more information, read the Igantt Help on Automatic Resource Scheduling.

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Define a Report View

Report Items define what activity types to report on,
along with any conditions/filters that apply (eg, Drilling on
bench Total Drilled Meters, Load volumes and tonnes,
stoping on level 11A, etc).
A summary report is a grouping of report items
displayed over a defined Time Period. You can report by
day, week, month or year, or a combination of all.
Eg1 Tonnes Moved by Bench

Eg 2- Report on Tunnel development in metres, and stope tonnes by month:

Eg 3 - Report on Tunnel development in metres filtered by level, reported for a

combination of days, weeks and months. The schedule is colour coded by time
Time Period
period.
Report Items

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Days

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Weeks

Months

Creating Report Items

A Report is a grouping of Report Items over a specified Time Period. To set
up and view a report, you must :
create the Report Items (activities that you want to report on, with
optional conditions/filters applied)

create the Report (which combines report items over a specified time
frame)

set the Current Report.

Create a Report Item

Select Reports>Define Report Items. From here you can create, edit,
copy, delete and reorder your report items.

Select New to create a new report item.

NOTE: This option can also be accessed while later editing
reports via the Reports>Define Reports.

Give the report item a name and select the

attribute that this item is to report to. The
name will be displayed in the Summary Report.
If the attribute is a property, you may weight the
value by a non-property attribute. This will
ensure that the reported property is averaged
with respect to the chosen quantity attribute.

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 You may also choose to make this a cummulative report item. This will
ensure that each period includes the total of all previous periods.

Click on the Activity Types tab and select the Activity Types, Activity
Groups, or combinations of both that you wish to report on. You can pres
the >> button to select all, however, for this example we will select DEV
only for this report:

Click on the Conditions to set specific conditions. This allows you to define
a Summary Report item for one attribute, but view only those activities that
match the conditions. You can set conditions based on Attributes or
Resoures. We will not apply any at this stage.

Untick the Apply conditions box, and press OK to return to the Summary
Report Items Editor.

Set Report Constraints

Add a Report Item for Tonnes Loaded on Bench 305:

Highlight the Tunnel DEV (m) report item and click the Copy button.
Type in the new Name, and uncheck the Cumulative Totals box as follows:

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 Click on the Conditions tab. Check the Apply Conditions box, and press
the Add Attribute Condition, then enter the conditions as follows:

Click OK. You should have the following 2 report items on the list:

Click OK .
Create a Report
To create or edit the reports:
Select Report>Define Reports. This will allow you to create, edit, delete
and reorder Summary Reports. At the moment, there is only one Default
Report on the list.
You can either add the report items you just created to the Default Summary
Report, or you can create a new Report. In this tutorial, you will do both:

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Add a report item to the existing Default Report:

Highlight the Default Summary report and press the Edit Report button.

Click on the Report Items tab, click on the Total Tonnes Moved report item
and press the > button to move it across to the right hand side of the
screen. Do the same for Tonnes Moved-305 Bench.

NOTE: You can enter New Report Items here by clicking on the New Report
Item if you have forgotten to create a Report Item.

Select the Time Periods button to apply a time period to view in the report.
Enter the Start Date and End Date and select the Time Increment as
month.

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 You can press the Edit in Advanced Mode to customise the Time Period if
you like (this will be covered later).

Click OK to finish

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Create a New Report

Click the New Report button. Name it Tonnage Day, Week, Month.
Highlight both report items and press the >> button to move them to the
right hand side of the screen.

Pres the Time Periods, and click on the Edit in Advanced Mode button:

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Setting Advanced Time Periods

Click the Edit in Advanced Mode button

Select the Start time, and specify the number of time periods you wish to
have.
The list of time periods will increase accordingly.

For each time period, select the time increment and amount. The time
increment may be day, week, month or year. The amount may be any
positive number. Each time period may have different increments and
amounts. In the Amount and Increment boxes, selecting any of these boxes
will produce a list of options.

In the example above, the first five periods are days, followed by 4 week
periods, then the rest are monthly periods.
To carry selections forward use the Copy Forward button to save
repetition. Once you have the Time Periods defined as you wish, select OK
to make the new changes. Selecting Cancel will not update the changes.

Press OK to finish creating and editing Summary Reports.

Exit the Summary Report Manager

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Display a Summary Report

Select Reports>Current Report and select the Default report

The following report will be displayed at the bottom of the screen:

Now Select Reports>Current Report and select the Tonnage Day, Week,
Month report:

You should now see this report displayed at the bottom of the screen:

Note the different Report Time periods for each summary report as defined in
the Summary Report definition.

Now see if you can create a summary report similar to the one below:

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Colour by Time Period

Select Visualisation/Set Object Colour Scheme. Choose Colour by Time

Periods and tick boxes as follows.

Multi-Time Period Object Colouring shows one activity as multiple time

periods.

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Change the order/hide selected reports

Select the Report and press the Move Up or Move Down buttons.

To hide a report, untick the Show Summary Report box.

Adding Attributes to report on

If you ever need to add a new attribute, do NOT do it in the scheduling
interface. You must add the new attribute to the appropriate table in the
workspace using GEMS, then edit the attributes Properties and Units in the
Production Scheduler interface (see section on Adding Attributes), then add the
following attributes:

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EXPRESSIONS
Expressions allow you to change many values at one time. Conditions may be
applied to change only those values that meet or do not meet a specified
condition.
The expression builder is used to apply expressions to activities as
follows:

Select Tools>Expressions to display the expression builder form:

Expressions can be applied to a grouping of Activity types and the value is

adjusted for one Attribute.
1. Select the Activity Types and use the <,>, and << buttons to move them
into the Apply Expressions to box.

2. Select the attribute to modify.

3. Type the expression into the expression box. You can use the tools provided
to help write the expression.
NOTE: You need to re-run the expressions each time you update your
schedule.

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Example: Recovered Gold

If you do not already have an attribute defined to store the calculated result then
there are several steps you must take to add an attribute. Adding an attribute
MUST be done in GEMS, not in the Production Scheduler environment!!!!
Add the field to the Polygon workspace table.

NOTE: You may have to Exit and Restart GEMS to read the new field
(bug in 5.53!!)

Edit the attributes Properties and Units in the Production Scheduler

interface.

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Check that the new attribute has been added to the Activity, eg.

Create an expression for Au-recovered = Au x Tonne X 0.95/31.04

Click Update to run expression

Close and check the results:

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Change the order of your columns to make it easier to check the calculation:

Results are displayed:

You can now report on this as well, eg

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