MINDS: A Modular Multi-Agent Decision-Support Framework for Dynamic Strategic Mine Planning

Read full text
Authors: Ricardo Nunes, Nathalie Risso, Moe Momayez
Cited by: 1
References: 20

Abstract

Strategic Mine Planning (SMP) creates the long-term economic baseline for mining operations, yet economic variability necessitates Dynamic Mine Planning (DMP) to rapidly stress-test those financial assumptions. Currently, this capability is hindered by fragmented software ecosystems that require manual data handoffs, slowing iteration and breaking the audit trail between market data and valuation models. While Generative AI affords an opportunity to automate these workflows, its adoption in the mining industry is stalled by concerns over data quality and the risk of uncritical acceptance of automated outputs. Addressing these challenges, this paper describes the Mine Intelligence and Decision Support (MINDS) framework. We present MINDS as a modular reference architecture that uses Large Language Model (LLM) agents to orchestrate the economic evaluation process while maintaining strict engineering oversight. The system integrates a conversational interface with a multi-agent assessment layer that acts as an adversarial review, assessing price assumptions against market intelligence before generating economic valuation scenarios. A proof-of-concept using the Marvin copper benchmark evaluates the framework, demonstrating automated request-to-report orchestration, execution stability with an average debate latency of 10.69 s and a transparent decision audit trail. These findings show that MINDS can systematize economic scenario analysis without sacrificing the governance and verification required for definitive feasibility studies.

Fields of Study & Subjects

Mining Techniques and Economics Mining and Resource Management Reservoir Engineering and Simulation Methods

Publication details

Journal / source
Mining
Publisher
MDPI AG
Volume
6
Issue
2
Pages
26–26
Publication date
2 April 2026
Language
EN