A coal mining department of an international company was incurring losses because it could not meet the goals for the amount of coal mined due to being unable to transport the necessary volume of overburden.

There was the need for the development of a simulation model that could analyze the operational processes at the mine and determine the volume of overburden that could realistically be transported over a period of 5 years.

NFP was approached for this project. The model we developed simulated the essential technological processes for 5 types of machinery, taking into account all the common delay types, such as:
- blasting;
- lunch break;
- shift change;
- breakdown and repairs;
- scheduled maintenance;
The model also analyzes machinery breakdown distribution, provides information on the equipment productivity and identifies bottlenecks.