Not just growth... controlled and sustainable growth that builds maturity into your mining operation.
Mines can grow suddenly and quickly driven by external forces like commodity prices. During boom times, growth may not seem like a priority, but this is the key time to capitalise on the success and establish mature roots used to build strong foundations.
Dial your operation up when opportunity presents. Dial it down safely when market challenges emerge.
Without true scalability, growth is chaotic, with the operation very difficult to bring under control.
When you need to dial back down, lack of scalability means few options beyond frantic cost cutting.
How well is your mine positioned to anticipate, respond and adapt to a rapid transition into less favourable market conditions?
While there are many external forces that seemingly come out of nowhere that you can't control, building resilience into the operation gives you clever options, insights, data and control to navigate the storm well.
Because 10% is an easy target achievable by all mid-tier mines without upsetting the apple cart too much.
… and because this mission is a highly effective, targeted and efficient way to introduce the operational disciplines needed to establish resilience, scalability and growth.
… and this 10% will allow you to continue to fund and build out the operation without taking away from other areas in your business.
Sustainable results follow a different path that not only increases ROI but at the same time creates a better working environment.
In fact, you can’t have one without the other.
But 10% is just the starting point.
The truth is that most mines have more than 10% sitting up their sleeve.
And if you can achieve 10% the you’re already on the path to 30%.
The only limitation is your appetite for change.
Built by courageous entrepreneurs using other people’s money, people skills weren’t a priority.
Rapid organic growth with a focus on getting to market ASAP.
Shareholder sentiment soon flips to getting their money back, with interest, whether you’re ready or not.
In many cases, the original site was built to a specification and budget that can’t meet the current production expectations.
You’re left working in a constrained environment that is stretched to its limits.
Everyone is busy and trying their best but rarely able to do their best work.
No time, no space, working to the lowest level of resistance.
FIFO and working in a remote and challenging environment.
Add to that, a mix of employees and contractors working for different employers with different KPIs and expectations.
Embedded culture and ways of working compound, leaving you feeling like every day is groundhog day.
Work around, short cuts and no one asking why are we doing this?
Systems and processes that worked early on are no longer fit for purpose.
Driven by bad habits and focussed on the wrong KPIs the plan won’t be met. Everyone knows it but try anyway.
Too many ineffectual meetings – crews firing in different directions.
What good looks like
It’s hard to improve when you don’t have a clear picture of what a realistic good looks like. We know what it looks like because we have seen and helped to create it.
Where you are now
A clear and concise picture of where you are now, warts and all. There’s no point pulling punches so we don’t.
The gaps
Identification of the gaps between where you are and where you should be ranked in order of importance and their connection to performance.
A realistic and achievable path forward
The path forward has to be achievable and committed to from the top or it risks doing more harm than good.
Building an efficient, healthy workforce
Even an abundant site with state of the art plant is dependent upon the quality of its workforce.
We know the levers to pull to get your workforce up and firing.
Resetting years of bad habits
“That’s the way we’ve always don’t it” is a tough nut to crack, particularly with the seasoned campaigners.
Engagement and accountability
No, it’s not a pipedream. With the right approach you can and will create an engaged workforce, committed to improvement and actually wants to be held accountable.
Busting silos
The formation of silos is a natural occurrence but when you and your leadership team know why and how they form, you can break them down and stop them from reoccurring.
Clear communication
Critical and particularly challenging in a mining environment where the grapevine thrives and many messages get lost in translation.
Well-oiled, efficient business systems and processes
No more drama or firefighting – everyone knows what they are doing and why.
Yes, boring is good.
Trusted reliable data
Making decisions on gut feel isn’t sustainable and very unpleasant when you get it wrong. Accurate data and timely reporting are your best friends.
Scalability
Constraints come in many forms. You can’t remove them all but identifying and knowing where they should sit helps maximise your throughput.
Continuous improvement
Sitting still in a competitive environment means going backwards. You can always do better so continuous improvement should be part of your DNA.
A better bottom line
No hiding the fact that you’re a commercial enterprise driven by shareholders. The bottom line will improve as a natural consequence of the change you make/introduce.
The Initial Productivity Review is not a full deep-dive analysis. It’s a first pass look at the operation’s systems, business processes, leadership effectiveness and team culture.
It may be a first pass, but because we are leveraging a set of best practice indicators, questions and insights we have developed over many years, it’s surprisingly efficient at providing answers to questions like:
What’s more, the report will be able to outline how the people-process-technology triangle is working towards your objectives and where it is undermining them.
We are continuously updating our Insights page with company updates, articles and industry wide information – take a look below.
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A mining CEOs guide to predictability, control, scaleability and growth