Movements of personnel and materials in Australian underground coal mines

With the desire to optimise the development of roadways in underground coal mines as operations expand, it logically followed that any increase in the development rate will require more efficient logistics management, especially the timely supply of roof support materials (bolts, chemicals and mesh) to each active face area. Logistics management in general was not considered as a key issue when initial or long-term planning of an underground coal mine is undertaken. It is traditionally assumed that whatever production targets are set that logistics can keep up or that it is retrospectively managed after an identifiable bottleneck.