Elkington,TJ & Grobler,FC 2011, 'Robust mine planning', in Y Potvin (ed.), Strategic versus Tactical 2011: Proceedings of the Fourth International Seminar on Strategic versus Tactical Approaches in Mining, Australian Centre for Geomechanics, Perth, pp. 11-19, https://doi.org/10.36487/ACG_rep/1108_02_Elkington
(https://papers.acg.uwa.edu.au/p/1108_02_Elkington/)
Abstract: Financial risk analysis is often conducted at the end of a feasibility study, after a project strategy has already been selected. Thus, risk (quantitatively at least) and uncertainty has limited influence in the decision making process. This paper proposes a simple and efficient process to consider risk in the decision making (or options selection) phase of a study. In this way, “robust” strategies can be selected: strategies that perform well under a wide range of conditions. This is in contrast to the typical approach of “optimising” a project based on a single set of point estimates (assumptions) of the future, without consideration of inherent uncertainty. Three case studies show some analyses that can be adopted to consider project robustness.