Your Partner for Project Management in the Mining Industry

Challenge: An explosives company was experiencing complications in understanding the scope of works for a major shutdown project. In the current state, many departments were working across multiple systems that didn’t talk to each other, which created duplication, missed opportunities and potential errors. Steadfast was brought in to connect all these systems, giving all teams visibility over the entire scope, and ensuring everyone is working with accurate and current information.

Solution: Firstly, we conducted an audit of all systems, which included SharePoint, excel sheets and SAP, to ensure that work captured in one is also captured in the others, and to find any discrepancies (ie, more or less work orders in different systems, and changes among those work packs). Secondly, we reviewed how each team worked with their systems and were able to simplify many over-complicated processes. Finally, all data was transposed into a custom-designed PowerBI dashboard, where everyone was able to see the current state of the shutdown project, with data that was auto-refreshed daily.

Outcome: The entire team now have confidence in the work execution and plan. Time is invested into tasks for execution as opposed to redundant or out of scope works. There is a better understanding of costs, and project leads are better able to report up to senior management with confidence that their data is accurate, since all teams are working off the same information. Plans for the future state include transitioning the workforce to one system, ie SAP, as the sole source of truth, which would reduce many of the issues inherent in working across multiple applications.

Challenge:  In an industry-first, BHP were introducing a new maintenance skill set into the business. While this would diversify and strengthen our workforce, and address an industry-wide skills-gap, these newly-trained maintainers had different qualifications than people were used to, and there were legalities, risks and limitations around what they could and couldn’t do on site. As this project involved challenges to existing norms, infrastructure and people processes, it was burdened with misconceptions, confusion and fear from existing employees.

Solution: Working with a stakeholder audience of 200+ people leaders from GM-level down, across multiple sites Australia-wide, my goal was to support the change by providing understanding, mitigating risk and establishing a level of comfort with the new change. Throughout a 12-month process, this involved:

• site visits for face-to-face interactions
• development of presentations and documentation
• delivering knowledge-transfer sessions
• conducting risk assessments with impacted stakeholders
• data analysis of maintenance strategies
• suggesting alterations to maintenance strategies based on capability assessments
• integration with work management planning process
• providing feedback loops and Q&A forums

Outcome: I enjoyed the challenge of working with different people, understanding their unique gaps and finding ways to close them with the best outcome. These new resources have now been embedded right through the current work management processes from planning and scheduling to execution. Sites have an understanding on how best to utilise their new skill set, and the program continues to grow and evolve, with additional skill sets being introduced to meet client needs. The program is now looked at as a flagship model for other countries and industries.

Challenge: After BHP created the new maintenance skill set, it remained an objective to work out the logistics and processes of physically deploying these people to sites. Where were they most needed? How would they integrate with existing teams? What procedures needed to be established to ensure a smooth process each and every time?

Solution: Multiple stakeholder teams would have a part to play in the successful BAU (business as usual) deployment. This solution started by engaging all teams, understanding everyone’s role and their capabilities, and identifying where additional resources were required.

• Integrating with existing processes where possible
• Streamlining current processes
• Creating new tools or processes to support team interaction and handover points
• Developing excel tools for improved workflow
• Embedding document structure and RACI for visibility

Outcome: After an initial handover/transition period to ensure stability, a well-established process was handed over to BAU, and now runs with multiple teams responsible for their package of work.

Challenge: The Port Hedland planning team was understaffed, but the business needed to see a gain in productivity without recruiting more people. How could we deliver the desired output with less people, whilst still finding continuous improvement opportunities?

Solution: As leader of the team, I first sought to understand our constraints and pain points. The key to success was being honest and transparent with the existing team, and ensuring they had full understanding and buy-in before engaging stakeholders. Then, looking at the data to identify where the workload was, and taking into account the capability of the team and how best to use their skills, we began housekeeping:

• Removed waste from our processes
• Automated work that was repetitive or time-consuming
• Engaged internal customers to agree on waste reduction strategies
• Developed transition plan with minimal impact and risk
• Communications roll out, documentation updates.

Outcome: With only 6 weeks’ preparation, we completed our transition in a matter of weeks. There was no drop in reliability or output of the team. Continuous improvements were evident in the next major project (Shute rebuild). Moreover, the team now had a strategic and cohesive approach between coordinators; better reporting to support and enable people and process; and improved team morale. From this success, I helped other peers do the same with their team, and this became a repeatable process for any team to apply.