Mine Planning & Production Scheduling for Managers Training Course

Course Overview

Learning Objectives

• Explain the full planning chain from geological model through resources, reserves, plans, and schedules to final shipment.
• Interpret resource and reserve statements prepared under the JORC Code or other codes aligned with the CRIRSCO Template as a non-specializt.
• Assess how cut-off grade, stripping ratio, mining sequence, and plant capacity influence a life-of-mine plan.
• Distinguish the purpose and content of long-term, medium-term, and short-term plans and how each one should connect to the next.
• Challenge the key planning assumptions on productivity, availability, dilution, recovery, cost, and price.
• Compare planning scenarios using high-level net present value, cash flow, and operational risk outputs.
• Evaluate fleet, contractor, and sequencing options through their effect on schedule, cost, and flexibility.
• Oversee stockpile and blending strategies that protect plant feed, product quality, and customer commitments.
• Measure schedule attainment by period and diagnose whether misses come from geology, equipment, people, or the plan itself.
• Use reconciliation between model, plan, mill, and sales data to test whether the plan remains reliable.
• Establish plan governance, including review gates, sign-off authority, and formal change control.
• Report plan risks clearly and honestly to boards, investors, ministries, and regulators.
• Develop a plan review procedure that fits the size, commodity, and complexity of their own organization.

Who Should Attend

Learning Outcomes

• By the end of this course, participants will be able to:
• Trace how a geological model becomes a resource, a reserve, a plan, and a production schedule.
• Read a resource and reserve statement as a non-specializt and ask the right questions about its confidence levels.
• Explain how cut-off grade, stripping ratio, and sequence change the value of a life-of-mine plan.
• Identify unrealistic assumptions by comparing a proposed plan with actual site performance data and past results.
• Connect long-term plans with annual budgets and with monthly and weekly production schedules.
• Compare plan scenarios on value and risk and present a clear, defensible recommendation to an executive committee.
• Judge fleet, contractor, stockpile, and blending options by their effect on value and risk.
• Diagnose the real causes of plan misses and direct a credible recovery response that protects later periods.
• Interpret reconciliation reports linking the model, the plan, the plant, and sales, and act on persistent gaps.
• Set up plan governance with clear review gates, approval authority, version control, and formal change control.
• Communicate plan risks and ranges honestly to boards, investors, and government bodies.
• Apply a structured plan review checklist in their own organization without doing design work.

Course Outline