Using the personal computer to simulate mining operations

GPSS is one of the most popular computer simulation languages which has found application to solving a wide range of problems. These problems have been in areas such as manufacturing, queueing theory, inventory control, etc. As yet, it has not found a wide acceptance by the mining engineer. Two possible reasons for this are: 1 It is a language (not a package) and so must be learned. Few mining engineers have been taught to program with GPSS in their studies. Being a language, a different program must be written for each problem. 2 It has not been widely available and some versions for mainframe computers are expensive to install. Until recently it was not available for the personal computer. (PC) With the widespread availability of PCs, it is now possible to run a very inexpensive, but powerful version of GPSS on any MS-DOS PC. One such version of GPSS is described here. This is GPSS/PC which has numerous features such as excellent graphical capabilities, microwindows for isolating on different parts of the system, and the ability to view the simulation in progress. Several samples of the simulation of working mines in Australia are given to indicate the power, speed and versatility of GPSS/PC. These include a surface coal mine which is considering the installation of a dispatching system, a power plant that is going to expand and wishes to know what size storage bunkers to build and how a mine might use simulation to determine the optimum number of spare parts to have on hand.