For many mining operations the challenge of equalling World Best
Practices has become the key motivator for increasing mine productivities
and for lowering total costs. In most instances this will only be achieved
if mines optimise their total system rather than minimising specific costs
within unit operations. In the past, drilling and blasting have been viewed
as a cost to be minimised rather than operations which should have their
impacts fully leveraged. Once a hardrock orebody is defined the activity which has the most
substantial impact in determining the efficiency of a mining operation is
the blasting. The output from a blast affects every downstream operation;
only by understanding the extent and interactions can the mine be
optimised. Substantial improvements to hardrock mining, quarrying and
excavation operations are achievable. Instead of seeking the regular one
to three per cent improvements based on reduction of consumables, mine
operators would be well advised to go for much bigger targets of ten to 30
per cent by fully leveraging the drill and blast operations.