Change management | for miners, by miners

Case Studies

Integrating a 24h Plan Tool for Greater Mine Plan Attainment

A client needed a strategy to improve mine plan attainment to meet daily targets and implement a revised 24-hour plan for easier corrective action. Up until the engagement with YCP Unison, weekly plans divided into daily targets had low productivity levels due to the constantly shifting and dynamic nature of the operation.

Home » Insights » Case Studies » Integrating a 24h Plan Tool for Greater Mine Plan Attainment

Key Results

Overall increase in tons per operating hour

From 7000 TPOH in November to 8500 TPOH in December

Overall increase in daily plan compliance

Compliance to mine plan stayed within the 10% range

Better vehicle allocation

Decrease in number of assigned trucks by 8-10% for mining priorities

Reduced waiting time

Decrease by 5% in waiting for truck times

Specific Actions Taken

The use of a 24-hour planning tool is now part of the mine supervisors’ daily routine as it gives a glimpse of their current performance, areas to improve, and flagging opportunities for other areas. However, a few steps were crucial to employee buy-in:

Training and Feedback Opportunities

Mine Operations Superintendents and assistant superintendents were coached in using the newly developed 24-hour planning tool for productivity planning, incorporating their feedback during implementation.

Built-in Flexibility

A mixed fleet consideration was also put in place, so the variable nature of availability can be built into the plan. This built flexibility into the process to allow for adjustments that maximized performance on-site to meet production targets.

Alignment and Across Departments

Other departments were also brought into the effort and they provided daily feedback of the truck current and shift availability, which is taken into account for the daily plan.

Our Approach

Plan attainment issues reviewed weekly couldn’t provide an effective identification and thus timely solution since the dynamic nature of the operation had already shifted or priorities changed. This had a direct impact on all-in sustaining costs (AISC) per ounce in general. A focus on specific steps was needed to gain control over direct factors influencing mining performance.

Making a practical easy to use tool to not only track performance, but also help provide an overall simplified strategy for the daily production targets was essential. Understanding actual versus real capacities as well as overall expected performances as a first step was critical, then providing an approach that allowed adjustments and flexible decision-making based on those guidelines with the objective to maximize performance.

Results

The project with YCP Unison was successful in helping the client develop a planning and performance tracking tool for easier attainment of production targets. Enhanced coordination with other departments to align their respective tasks was also factored into the process to achieve collective objectives in line with the mine plan.

A previous day reconciliation process was developed for operations to regularly review areas that needed attention and decisions needed for the following day.