Adapting to Challenges with Greater Productivity and Efficiency

Adapting to Challenges in Mining with Greater Productivity and Efficiency

While costs continue to spiral across all resources, productivity in mining is struggling. New technology is the first thought to improve productivity at mining sites. Productivity is a common dilemma. And despite the industry’s long-running efforts to cut costs, improve productivity and transform mining with savvy technology, new inefficiencies pop up with alarming regularity. And all the fancy programs that are being promoted often fail to deliver on promised gains.

However, at A&M Remediation, with over 10 years of hands-on experience, we have proven that basic housekeeping is one of the simplest ways to improve efficiencies in a significant way. Mining operators can’t control the unexpected shifts in prices and shifts in currency, but they can control how they operate on-site.

Day to day waste management and housekeeping is the key to helping keep up with the demand of the increased production at mine sites. As companies move away from reactionary cost-cutting toward sustainable waste management, it creates a clearer line of sight associated with inefficiencies created by poor day-to-day housekeeping.

Simple changes across the operation can significantly extend the life of everything from machinery to the actual life of the mine, saving millions of dollars over the course of a year or more.

It’s time to take a look at new ways to attract talent, optimize productivity, and allocate costs. By focusing on cleaner mines we enable productivity, and these other challenges can be more easily resolved.

In this post, we will share how to optimize each of three key areas:

Challenge #1: Talent Shortages

Mining companies have had a significant talent shortage over the years. However, it’s become even worse since COVID-19. According to Mining.com, with the decrease of mining operators on-site, it’s a real struggle to meet production targets.

It’s time operators look at what’s really happening on-site and recognize the opportunity to enable the mining operators to focus on what they do best – which is producing. The solution: shifting waste management and housekeeping responsibilities to companies like A&M Remediation, which will ensure that mining operators that you have on-site can focus on what they have been hired to do.

Without the extra responsibility of housekeeping, a mine manager can ensure waste is sorted and disposed of properly. Pausing production for broken tools and machinery maintenance, productivity needs to stop–and it can! Taking these extra tasks away from miners enables them to continue their job – extracting resources underground using their tools and machinery.

Also, aligning with a more sustainable model across all operations will help miners retain employees with valuable and transferrable skill sets needed for the future of mining. Ensuring the basic aspects of an operation are clean and efficient will provide a path to attracting new recruits who may not have previously considered a career in mining.

Challenge #2: Rising Energy and Production Costs

The importance of having a productive and functional operation has never been so important. With costs increasing significantly, the pressure for more resource production also grows. While demands are high, it is necessary to remember that commitments to ESG (Environmental, Social and Governance) metrics are also being met.

There are many opportunities to save money, but cutbacks on programs such as waste management and proactive maintenance may cause operations to have more delays and lower productivity. These housekeeping responsibilities allow mining operators to focus on their tasks at hand and not worry about cleanups, fixing technology, or waiting for new equipment to resume operation. As Rod Niels mentions in the 2016 Mine Safety & Training Section, housekeeping is also important for minimizing hazards while employees are working.

Many mining companies have published Materiality Reports, and often, in these reports, we see the need to have sustainable and stable processes matter. With A&M as a partner, on-site, mining leadership can start to see these key metrics addressed in a meaningful way while capturing considerable savings associated with their bottom line.

Challenge #3: Captial Allocation

There is a noticeable increase in cash flow for mining companies as the demand for mined resources continues to rise. With more pressure on production, there needs to be a new strategy for productivity on-site. In 2022, we see that leadership is marginally cautious with their budget and cutting costs. However, the right investments can save companies thousands of dollars.

A refreshed productivity strategy can include rethinking allocations and applying more sustainable processes that can ultimately save a mining company money and increase productivity. It is extremely important to optimize mining operations and include more sustainable strategies, and this model is better suited to today’s evolving regulatory requirements.

A&M Remediation is expanding its sustainability solutions. We provide our clients with tailored solutions to optimize operations. And we see the challenges when managing day-to-day waste; seemingly small things can create colossal slowdowns or temporary shutdowns. Removing the challenges of day-to-day housekeeping and hazardous materials has a considerable competitive advantage.

Reviewing both one-time costs and the impact of ESG metrics is important to help optimize operations. Having a partner that can create a positive workplace that ensures productivity and safety at operations is valuable to your employees and the company’s image.

The pressure for faster production at mining sites has skyrocketed in the past few months. Productivity at-site is crucial to meeting the production targets. While efficiency is important, miners need to continue maintaining their ESG standards and dealing with their daily housekeeping and waste management on site.

Mining decision-makers of today need to work collaboratively across planning, mining, processing and supply chain. And they need to be ready to challenge long-held assumptions.

A&M Remediation provides a service to our clients that helps them maintain their ESG standards while dealing with day-to-day housekeeping at mining sites. This service ultimately helps operations productivity. Now mineworkers can focus on mining, while the team from A&M can focus on keeping operations organized, clean, and safe.

Works Cited

Photo by Ricardo Gomez Angel on Unsplash