A variable neighbourhood descent algorithm for the open-pit mine production scheduling problem with metal uncertainty

Uncertainty is an inherent aspect of the open‐pit mine production scheduling problem (MPSP); however, little is reported in the literature about solution methods for the stochastic versions of the problem. In this paper, two variants of a variable neighbourhood descent algorithm are proposed for solving the MPSP with metal uncertainty. The proposed methods are tested and compared on actual large‐scale instances, and very good solutions, with an average deviation of less than 3% from optimality, are obtained within a few minutes up to a few hours.