Call for Papers

Andres Weintraub of the University of Chile and Alexandra M. Newman of the Colorado School of Mines will serve as guest editors of a special issue of Interfaces on “Operations Research in Mining.”

Mining is the process of extracting a naturally occurring material from the earth to derive a profit. Operations research has been used in mining primarily to make decisions about when and how to perform both surface and underground extraction with respect to how to recover the material and what to do with the extracted material. Because machines are used to extract the ore, decisions about which type of machines to use, how many machines to use and how to allocate them also arise.

Mining has received increasing attention in practice, in the literature and at conferences. The current scarcity of easily accessible, high-grade ore deposits has underscored the importance of making mining operations more efficient, especially through operations research. Furthermore, with recent improvements in hardware and software capabilities, models are becoming detailed enough to be applicable and useful to real-world operations.

The guest editors solicit papers at the strategic, tactical and operational levels concerned with the extraction and processing of the following minerals: (1) metallic ores such as iron and copper, (2) nonmetallic minerals such as sand and gravel, and (3) fossil fuels such as coal.

Mathematical methodologies appropriate for the description of extraction and processing are traditional operations research techniques in areas such as queuing, simulation, decision analysis and optimization. Papers must belong to one or more of the following categories:

• an application with a verification letter from the company or organization using the results;
• a novel literature review of operations research related to mining; and
• a tutorial emphasizing the practical implementation of mining models.

Authors should review the Interfaces instructions on preparing a paper at http://interfaces.pubs.informs.org/guidelines.htm. Papers must be submitted online at http://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/inte. In the Author Center of Manuscript Central, designate the “Manuscript Type (#1 – “Type, Title & Abstract) as “Special Issue” in the dropdown list; in #4 – “Details & Comments,” respond “Operations Research in Mining” to the question, “This paper is for which special issue?” All papers will be refereed.

Articles must be received no later than Oct. 15, 2011 for full consideration.