In modern surface mines, the load and haul fleet represents the bulk of the capital employed. Sophisticated mine dispatch algorithms are used to assign trucks to shovels based on predicted travel and loading times. Maintaining consistent loading cycle times is key to ensuring the dispatch system can deploy trucks efficiently. Consistent loading times are more easily achieved when digging conditions are also consistent – meaning that fragmentation, floor levels, muckpile looseness and profile are all achieved repeatedly blast after blast.