New mining IP proving lucrative in bolstering productivity metrics

A leading engineering geologist who specialises in mining says the industry is capturing astronomical data point information but is not reaping the financial reward of utilising it fully.

Adam Kerr of Cartledge Mining and Geotechnics has worked on countless best-in-class projects across the Australian landscape and says one of the most commonly overlooked fiscal considerations is how to use data to reduce administrative burden.

“Reducing administrative hours through best-practice processes is not designed to remove technical staff overheads, but rather, to make the best use of their specialised skills and thinking,” says Kerr.

“We know burnout is an issue in our industry; we know all mining employees would rather be working on exciting projects, but often we’re bogged down by a plethora of rinse-and-repeat monitoring and reporting tasks that could be assimilated for all-round gains.”

Kerr has been seconded to a site with a major mining operator since December 2020 to assist with geotechnical site support and has been using a new IP framework to identify task-migration opportunities to achieve better reactive to proactive time splits.

“It’s commonplace for full-time operators to get stuck in systems and processes. The beauty of working in interim contract roles means you can’t make yourself redundant, but you can bring in new processes to support the full-time players to shave off some inefficiencies for when they return.

“Sometimes we avoid removing administrative or repetitive work out of fear of becoming irrelevant; this is a normal way to feel, and the good news is by adopting a proactive mindset to combat this, you’ll actually be positioned as an even more valuable contributor.

“You don’t have to do this yourself…You can engage an interim process and improvements operator to assist in building the tools to support your mining project,” Kerr says.  

Finding task migration opportunities can be achieved through taking a tabulated approach to data gathering, and shaping timesheets that capture daily, weekly, monthly and ad-hoc tasks.

“Start with the basics of putting some metrics around your plan. What hours are spent on proactive work, and in contrast reactive work, and then list the ideal hours you think it should take – this will shift you towards a more proactive position in almost every category.  

“Pit inspections, short term design work, safety inspections and observations, long term design work, hazard reporting, report writing, these are all things to include amongst many other considerations,” he says. “This is how you can finally get that step ahead of hazards and hopefully, knowing about them before they’re a concern.”

Kerr says tracking these items over time will help you to see what’s changed in all areas of your project and is designed to help experts spend more time working on designing the pit rather than ‘monitoring in the pit’.

The geologist further recommends mapping mid-term design work/rework, radar monitoring and setup, strip reconciliation, exploration planning and safety and compliance audits.

“We’re looking for the mindset of being able to see the big picture through the detail. We’re in an age of technology where we can take photos in the pit and immediately capture GPS point data on a phone or tablet, digitise lines on a map, and all within a couple of hours.

“Running the same stability analyses and spending hours on reporting every week…Sound familiar? Or constantly being bombarded with design checks… The processes don’t have to be so laborious.  

“Have the courage to do it once and take the time to map all your categories. This won’t make you redundant; it’ll make you more valuable and your operation, more profitable. Less time on the tedious day-to-day means more time to add value to the site through optimisation of design.”

Since being appointed as an interim process and improvements specialist to the mining operator in December, Kerr’s task migration methodology has improved the site’s reactive/proactive split from nearly 80/20 to a more proactive split of 40/60.

“Interim appointments and secondments should not just be seen as ‘keeping the seat warm’ in a site technical role. They provide a great opportunity to make real financial impacts through re-designs that optimise operations,” he says. “These material changes should also account for outliers by way of good and bad weeks.

“You should never be 100 per cent proactive. It’s never realistic to think that’s how it will look as you need to strike the right balance of design to ensure geotechnical safety while being financially conscious.”