Mill Operating Records And Accounts

IN the operation of any ore processing plant, no matter what beneficiation process or combination of processes may be used, certain fundamental figures are regularly needed for essential records and accounting. These include amounts of ore treated and products made, with their assays, as well as quantities of labor and supplies used, with their cost. Usually labor and supplies are broken down and allocated to certain operations by the accounting department, and resulting tabulations are available for study by the milling plant management. However, to avoid too many minor details that would make these reports cumbersome and involved, much information that could be useful to the plant operator is often consolidated in such a manner as to have lost a considerable part of its value. To clarify this point, it may be stated that top management is most concerned with production figures and cost of production, while the plant operator is also interested in quantities of labor in man- hours and amounts of supplies used. Due to varying unit prices of labor and supplies, comparisons on a dollar basis alone are often misleading. With rising unit costs of the past few years now about twice as high as they were a few years ago, constant study of quantities involved is required to improve efficiency and productivity.