Abstract

An important logistic process in open-pit mines is material handling due to its high operational costs. In this process shovels extract and load materials that must be transported by trucks to different destinations at the mine. Several centralized systems have been developed to support this process. The methods applied for these systems are based on mathematical programming, heuristic processes or simulation modelling. The main disadvantages in these systems are performing calculations in a timely manner, addressing the dynamics of a mine, and not being able to provide a precise dispatching solution. In this paper, we describe a distributed approach based on Multiagent Systems (MAS). In this approach, the real-world equipment items such as shovels and trucks are represented by intelligent agents. To meet the target in the production plan at minimal cost, the agents must interact with each other. For this interaction, a Contract Net Protocol with a confirmation stage was implemented. To evaluate the MAS, an agent-based simulation with data from a Chilean open-pit mine was used. The results show that the MAS provide more precise solutions than the current centralized systems in a practical calculation timeframe. In addition, the MAS decreases the truck costs by 20% on average.