Mining has a long history of production and operations management. Considering the increasing complexity of reserves, declining metal grades, and worldwide price volatilities, mines have to operate more efficiently than ever. In recent years, companies have been adopting innovative solutions and technologies to reduce costs and remain competitive in the global market. Specifically, management of bottlenecks has been in the focus of the manufacturing industry for decades now. The mining industry has made significant advancements in process improvement tools using equipment, human, and asset tracking capabilities. However, to date, there is no holistic approach or system to identify and manage the bottleneck in the entire value chain of mining. This research proposes a new method to identify and rank the bottlenecks in a mine value chain. The method is applied in a coal mine and the results are presented in the case study.

The implementation of fleet management software in mining operations poses challenges, including high initial costs and the need for skilled personnel. Additionally, integrating new software with existing systems can be complex, requiring significant time and resources. This study aims to mitigate these challenges by leveraging advanced technologies to reduce initial costs and minimize reliance on highly trained employees. Through the integration of computer vision and multi-objective optimization, it seeks to enhance operational efficiency and optimize fleet management in open-pit mining. The objective is to optimize truck-to-excavator assignments, thereby reducing excavator idle time and deviations from production targets. A YOLO v8 model, trained on six hours of mine video footage, identifies vehicles at excavators and dump sites for real-time monitoring. Extracted data—including truck assignments and excavator ready times—is incorporated into a multi-objective binary integer programming model that aims to minimize excavator waiting times and discrepancies in target truck assignments. The epsilon-constraint method generates a Pareto frontier, illustrating trade-offs between these objectives. Integrating real-time image analysis with optimization significantly improves operational efficiency, enabling adaptive truck-excavator allocation. This study highlights the potential of advanced computer vision and optimization techniques to enhance fleet management in mining, leading to more cost-effective and data-driven decision-making.