Operations Research and Computer Application in the Mineral Industry: Past, Present and the Future

The escalation in micro-computer power during the past ten years has been instrumental in the realization of operations research and other mine planning tools as a practical mine design tool. Present day utilization of computer techniques varies across a wide spectrum of activities: from operations research to aid mine management through payroll processing to mine design, monitoring and control. With the advances in computers, increasing automation and robotization in mining, operations research techniques are being used in modeling and evaluation. The trend discernable in mine planning is increasing use of operations research models. In the next ten to fifteen years, nanotechnology will enter in our lives in a big way. There are several methods being pursued for information processing at the nanoscale. The mineral industry management in the 21st century will be faced with several new challenges and opportunities from these advances in the mineral industry applications, data and information acquisition and transmission technology