ACTIVITY BASED COST CONTROL
S.Narayana Moorthy

An examination to activity-based cost control in mining

• For working in intricate and complicated deposits involving considerable rejection and need for strict quality control;
  
  FORWARD PREPARATIONS:
  
  Development
  Overburden removal, waste handling, re-handling and isolation   of      deleterious material at the loading point
  Maintenance of roads and dumps
  Pumping, dust suppression, environmental controls and drainage
  Geological studies and surveys
  Continuous mapping and monitoring of quality blocks for appropriate blending
  Additional equipment
  Preparations and development of infrastructure for seasonal vagaries of nature
  Method of mining
  Automated continuous mining or with conventional equipment?
  
  For conventional equipment
  Drilling
  Primary drilling -(cost matching to output requirements)
  Secondary reduction to crusher feed size as needed
  (Volume proportioning to full-scale drilling OR additional rock breaking equipment or attachments)
  Re-handling of oversize material
  Explosives and blasting
  Need to store at site and infrastructure needed
  Policy on inventory and storage capacities
  Availability for direct supply and on-site mixing
  
  Loading
  Total output possible with reference to the actual output
  MAT (Machinery Availability Time) utilization to determine the equipment performance and related costs
  Sorting of deleterious material and handling oversize
  Direct loading of quality material as a percentage of total volume handled
  NECESSITY to keep standby equipment in view of synchronizing loading with crusher operations and performance
  Hauling
  Internal shunting to sort and remove deleterious material
  Handling reject oversize and maintenance of dumps for different quality stock
  Waste handling to ensure acceptable material for direct loading
  
  Dispatch
  Possibility of making the planned trips with reference to the actual possible trips
  Constraints at the plant dumps/crusher hopper and queuing dislocating the cycle times at loading
  relationship between crusher timings, storage inventory levels and means of reclamation
  Synchronizing working timings with plant, crusher and mine
  
  Administrative overheads
  Mining overheads
  Plant overheads
  Security, welfare, environmental, legal, training and related overheads
  Technical services
  Business-related expenses
  
  And most importantly check provision for:
  Development expenses
  Additional exploration expenses
  Development of additional infrastructure
  To take precautions against depletion of reserves and necessity for augmentation