The situation

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A large opencast mine was struggling to ramp up production in the face of increased market demand.  A detailed review identified a number of underlying issues including poor contractor management and maintenance processes and ineffective front-line supervision.

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DBA was tasked to deliver an operational turnaround to help achieve aggressive budget and stretch targets to enable the business to take advantage of favourable market conditions.  DBA designed and delivered a turnaround programme that delivered a c. 40% increase in production over a 9-month period.

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The DBA involvement

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DBA ran an intensive 9-month turnaround programme focusing on five major focus areas.

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• Developing a bespoke dynamic constraints model (DCM) of the end-to-end mine operations to identify constraints and key opportunities for improvement

• Installing a new management operating system (MOS) to establish operations rhythms and routines, underpinning agendas, action logs and performance KPIs to enhance the level of discussion and feedback at all levels of the mine

• This was further supported by a meetings framework which acted as a point of convergence for review of previously agreed actions and work-plans to deliver on future priorities

• Implementing de-bottlenecking initiatives, focused around key operational constraints

• Implementing new maintenance management processes including scheduling, resourcing and management of a lifecycle management programme for key plant and equipment 

​Key outcomes

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• Delivered over 40% sustainable improvement in production, meeting stretch and financial targets for the first time in 2 years