Many Mining companies are asking themselves the question on how to get back to pre-COVID-19 (or as close as possible) production with the newly incorporated safety regulations. The hard lockdown imposed on South African mines from 27th March meant major production losses which cannot be recouped. The 1st May Level 4 concessions for 100% open cast mines and 50% underground mines, while welcomed, cannot alleviate the losses.
The challenge is how do we effectively operate within the pandemic safely while trying to achieve the new revised targets?
Some of the outstanding results achieved in 2019 by some mining companies had more to do with commodity prices than vastly improved productivity. The current 2020 situation demands higher productivity (increased tons per person) but with more safety regulation. These regulations will potentially increase costs, meaning if productivity does not improve, the cost per ton will increase.
The industry was already challenged with productivity issues pre-pandemic and these are not going to miraculously disappear because our workforce had a forced break and are happy to be back at work. One can be sure that COVID-19 will be a convenient excuse covering a multitude of production misses.
The ideal is to hit the road running and achieve or exceed operational targets in the shortest time possible without compromising safety.
Things need to be tight; you need to quickly develop your new “drumbeat” or rhythm of work. This is not the time to reflect on your values, but to re-enforce them, not to try experimental technologies but to sweat your assets. The time is for a narrow focus on effective operational output.
Yes, you must communicate, be transparent, involve all stakeholders. There are real COVID-19 fears.
Your Frontline leader/ supervisor is the one who will unlock those tons. Focus on them. They are the cogs throughout your whole value chain; they provide spares when needed, give improved availability and utilization, more meters and loads, less missed blasts.
They are your voice to their teams. Through their efforts they can effectively energize and engage their teams. Engaged teams are more productive and have less absenteeism.
OIM believes for the following 8-12 months 80% of effort should be supporting them. We have seen how direct performance coaching improved daily task execution of by 59%, that competency levels improved on average between 9-16%, providing the operations with an increase of between 12-25% throughput.
Competent, confident Frontline leaders will execute daily tasks more effectively, giving more output. The truth is if your Frontline leaders don’t perform, your profitability is at risk.
To most effective way to increase competencies is through a fit to purpose training programme supported by rigorous performance coaching on daily task execution. By consistently executing tasks better daily will bring improvement. Performance coaching provides the space for the Frontline leader to become more confident in their abilities. Our studies have shown that direct managers have four times more confidence in their supervisors after performance coaching than before. Why? Because they are executing their daily tasks better and more consistently.
A 2.9km gold mine in South Africa took the above approach, they had just gone through a restructuring and a subsequent strike. They did not have the luxury of time and focused their efforts on getting the Frontline leader productivity up. Within the first quarter, they achieved the target, for the next quarter they exceeded the target. All their key operational indicators were trending positive.
So, if you want rapid results from your start-up, focus on your Frontline leader/Supervisor, make them more effective and you will see productivity increase. OIM Consulting has done numerous programmes described above and the benefits of focusing on them usually exceed expectations.
Arjen de Bruin
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