Glossary term
Grade Control
Operational process that estimates, classifies, and routes mined material to manage ore quality, dilution, recovery, and value.
Definition
processGrade control is the operational process of estimating, classifying, and routing mined material to manage ore quality, dilution, recovery, and value.
Grade control links geological models, sampling, assaying, face mapping, blast design, digging control, stockpile management, plant feed, reconciliation, and uncertainty. It turns a resource model into mineable decisions at operational scale.
Grade control is the operational process used to estimate, classify, and route mined material. It helps decide what becomes ore, waste, marginal stockpile, blend material, special handling material, or direct plant feed.
The goal is to manage ore quality, dilution, recovery, processing behavior, and value while working with uncertain geological information. Grade control sits between the georesource model and daily mine execution.
Engineering use
Grade control uses blast-hole samples, channel samples, face mapping, scanner data, drilling data, assays, geological interpretation, equipment tracking, stockpile records, plant feedback, and reconciliation.
Decisions should account for grade, density, moisture, hardness, deleterious elements, cutoff strategy, dilution, mining selectivity, stockpile capacity, and processing constraints.
Common mistakes
A common mistake is treating the resource model as if it were exact at production scale. Another is using detailed routing rules that operators cannot identify reliably at the face or stockpile. A strong grade-control review states sampling support, classification rules, uncertainty, routing logic, dilution assumptions, reconciliation method, and feedback loop.