Case study | Partners in Performance

Case Study

Over 100% production increase during commissioning phase for nickel miner

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Business challenge

Our client wanted to take a proactive approach to ensure the success of their new mine from day one.

Context

A new underground nickel mine was in the last stage of commissioning.

The basin workers had traditionally resisted change, so an approach to proactively instill an effective continuous improvement culture would be key. Management sought to put in place the right systems and processes from the start to ensure the mine site would achieve a high performance throughout its life.

Business impact

0 weeks
above steady-state production rate within 6 months of the first blast (consecutive weeks)

0%
increase in lateral development rate

0%
increase in critical fleet availability

Solution

How we helped

  • Conduct a thorough assessment of the processes and systems in place to identify performance improvement areas
  • Increase lateral development rates with a focus on shotcreting
  • Increase availability of shotcreter
  • Build the necessary processes, tools and systems to create an enduring continuous improvement culture such as cascaded reviews from GM to front line, and high visibility whiteboards for performance tracking
  • Establish a pipeline of improvement ideas across all mine operations with clear idea owners, accountability and KPIs

Key Takeaway

  • Identify the least reliable steps in the cycle and focus there (in this case it was shotcreting)
  • Build a simple pre/post‑op checklist to maximise availability
  • Look at opportunistic scheduling changes to alleviate congestion (in this case delivering shotcrete at end of previous shift rather than the start of a new one which allowed an increase in deliveries and time window to shotcrete)
LeftCapital ProjectsLeftMining and Metals