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Abstract

Aspects in Mining & Mineral Science

Application of Queuing Theory to Larfarge Cement Transportation System for Truck/Loader Optimazation

  • Open or Close Afeni Thomas B1*, Idris Musa A2 and Usman Mariam1

    1Department of Mining Engineering, Federal University of Technology, Nigeria

    2Division of Mining and Geotechnical Engineering, Lulea University of Technology, Europe

    *Corresponding author: Afeni Thomas B, Department of Mining Engineering, Federal University of Technology, Akure, Nigeria

Submission: May 11, 2018; Published: June 19, 2018

DOI: 10.31031/AMMS.2018.02.000528

ISSN: 2578-0255
Volume2 Issue1

Abstract

Surface mining is the most common mining method worldwide; open pit mining accounts for more than 60% of all surface output. This project uses queuing technique to optimize the transportation at Lafarge WAPCO (Sagamu plant) Nigeria. Queuing theory was developed to model systems that provide service for randomly arising demands and predict the behaviour of such systems. Time of arrival at excavator area (hr/min/sec), time of first load by excavator into the truck (hr/min/sec), number of loads, time of departure from the excavator (hr/min/sec) and time taken to load trucks gotten from the Lafarge (Sagamu plant) was analysed to develop a model M/M/1: FCFS/∞/∞, based on the assumption of single channel and single server with infinite number of queues. The model was used to calculate the arrival rate, service rate and number of server which at the end of it gives 7turcks/hour, 21trucks/hour and 1loader respectively. @risk software was used to fit both service and inter-arrival into exponential distribution. The result shows that as the size of the haulage truck being used increases, shovel productivity increases and truck productivity decreases. An effective number of trucks must be chosen that will effectively utilize idle time, increase productivity and reduce cost of production to the barest minimum. The idle time gotten is 66.6%; this indicates that an additional 8 to 9 trucks can be added to the company truck fleet to make use of the idle time; since time translate to cost.

Keywords: Queuing theory; Idle time; Truck fleet; Inter-arrival time; Service time

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