ORIGINAL PAPER Defining chromite ore production trend by CCD method to reach sustainable development goals in mining sector, Iran Mehrdad Soleimani 1 & Behshad Jodeiri Shokri 2 Received: 4 November 2014 /Accepted: 17 March 2015 # Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2015 Abstract In the 20-years vision document of sustainable de- velopment of Iran, or the 2025 development vision document, the most important aim is to become the first industrialized country in the Middle East in 2025. This study aims to define production trend in mining section, especially chromite ore, to reach the goals of sustainable development plan in mining section of Iran. In the first step, chromite market conditions of Iran including production and consumption were defined. Then its place toward the other countries in the region and the world had been cleared. Finally, a dynamic panel estimation technique was employed using relevant data from chromite producing countries. Lifetime of reserves, chromite produc- tion, Hubert curve, curve of price of the metal, intensity of use factors, supply and demand, and finally the socio-economic changes were selected as decision making criteria. These pa- rameters were optimized by CCD method. The results from the panel regressions reveal that Iran should reach the goals of sustainable developments in this section by four steps. Besides, it should reduce its chromite production to extend chromite reserves lifetime, produce more ferrochrome to make added value, not to export anymore chromite ore and finally smooth its political condition. Keywords Sustainable development . Mining sector . Chromite ore . Dynamic planning . Depletion mid-point Introduction In traditional approach, planning and scheduling were two separate and successive operations. The process planning phase is mostly about the physical aspect of planning, where a product range, production quantities, machines, tools, mate- rial, and accessories are selected (Alberts 1977). However, it is impossible to manage a production effectively without having an objective production plan. Objective planning must be dy- namic and able to reflect immediately the new events that have an impact on the future manufacture organization develop- ment. Dynamic planning allows the possible future situations modeling without jeopardizing the production process itself. Dynamic planning and production scheduling is effected at the highest production planning level, i.e., in a moment of the initial placement of production requirements with imme- diate impact on the custom content decision (Alavi 1991). Master production schedule (MPS) and capacity requirement planning (CRP) in the environment of manufacturing re- sources planning (MRP) are the most frequently applied tra- ditional methods in practice. This system is characterized by a hierarchical approach from the top to the bottom. Goals and restrictions at the lower level are determined by the results at the higher level (Bychkov et al. 2014). The change of plan- ning was triggered by the requirement for flexibility and quick response to the market and consumers’ needs. Planning and scheduling functions often have opposing goals, which makes their separate treatments less efficient. Integration between planning and scheduling process is therefore vital as this is the only way to create more realistic plans and schedules. Figure 1 shows the integrated process planning and schedul- ing model (Alavi et al. 1997). It is basically divided into two parts—the part where all alternative plans for each product are determined and the op- timization part with the genetic algorithms approach. The first * Behshad Jodeiri Shokri b.jodeiri@hut.ac.ir 1 Faculty of Mining, Petroleum and Geophysics, University of Shahrood, Shahrood, Iran 2 Department of Mining Engineering, Hamedan University of Technology, Hamedan, Iran Miner Econ DOI 10.1007/s13563-015-0066-z