Mining & Metals

Industry overview

Mining & Metals is one of the world’s oldest industries providing essential input into many others. As of 2019, the combined revenue of the top 40 global mining companies amounted to 692 billion U.S. dollars. The industry has a wide range of plant types—from open-cut and underground mines to fixed plants, smelters, and refineries. The mobile equipment used is of a scale not seen in other industries and sets unique requirements. The fixed equipment also tends to see strong wear and tear.

What is not unique is the need to generate value from capital-intensive assets and to drive high reliability, high availability, while optimising costs and ensuring safety.

Common maintenance & reliability challenges in mining & metals

The Mining & Metals industry is impacted by significant boom and bust cycles—more so than, for example, Oil & Gas. This leads to periods of severe austerity and deep cuts, followed by generous spending during high commodity prices. Managing maintenance and improving reliability can be difficult, but getting the basics right eliminates waste and helps deploy scarce resources effectively. That positions operations better during tough times and allows meaningful investment during boom cycles.

Applying the Road to Reliability™ Framework in mining & metals

That’s exactly why the Road to Reliability™ framework is so relevant. It’s a simple but powerful approach that helps get the basics in place—basics that really matter and significantly improve both availability and reliability:

• Effective planning & scheduling that typically boosts maintenance productivity by 35% when moving from an industry average of 30% to a target of 45%.
• Fit-for-purpose preventive maintenance programs that eliminate non-value-adding PM tasks accumulated over time.
• A focus on defect elimination and RCA to transition from constantly fixing issues to fixing them forever. Use simple bad actor identification with top-down RCA, and promote a culture where minor issues are resolved before becoming major problems.
• These processes must be underpinned by leadership and culture. Without leadership, change stalls. Without cultural change, improvements don’t last. Many maintenance and plant managers struggle here.

It doesn’t matter whether you operate an offshore platform, onshore LNG plant, refinery, or unconventional oil/gas field—these fundamentals always add value. And often, major improvements can be achieved with your existing staff.

Want to know more about how the Road to Reliability™ framework can help? Download the Road to Reliability™ eBook. Or if you’re a manager looking to train your team to make lasting improvements, Schedule a Call.