AMC now offers a new service, On-line Benchmarking. Kate Sommerville, AMC Consultants’ Business Improvement Manager – Perth, explains: “A recent survey of our clients revealed that reduced availability of capital and funding, combined with commodity price pressure, still places cost reduction and productivity increases at the top of their organization’s strategy.

“For a mine manager, one of the best ways to achieve this strategy is to utilize the site’s production management system. If the system is set up well it can deliver:

• A method to identify and prioritize key production improvement initiatives
• Systematic and sustainable mining cost reduction and productivity improvement
• The ability to determine the cost reduction potential of key production parameters
• Data and analysis that supports timely management decisions.

“Common issues AMC has found in operations’ production management systems include:

• Systems are not set up correctly to collect all the data – gaps and duplication prevent timely decision-making
• Lack of ownership – the data is not checked, has errors and lacks integrity
• Production data is not used well in operational meetings to communicate and track improvement
• When setting budgets, ideal productivities rather than actual data analyses, are used.

“AMC has been benchmarking for a number of years and has conducted more than 100 benchmarking studies at metalliferous and coal, underground and open-pit mining operations. We take a snapshot of the last year, and include productivity and cost performance measures. With the progress in internet connectivity AMC can now offer an On-line Benchmarking service for a small monthly fee.

“AMC’s On-line Benchmarking includes:

“Initial set up:

• Site-based data mapping to allow comprehensive understanding of the operation and to facilitate more effective analysis of data and establishment of site relationships
• Cost and productivity models to report improvements
• Bottleneck models to identify and prioritise improvement.

“Remote monthly On-line Benchmarking:

• Data integrity check
• Benchmark reports – operating hours, downtime and productivity etc.
• Analysis of the priority area, including examining granular data
• Application of AMC’s mining expertise to assist in operations analysis
• Tracking of productivity improvement KPIs and their cost impact
• Outputs include a monthly presentation, phone call and a data integrity score.

“Your data does not need to be in perfect shape or in one place -we can pull this together for you. And site visit requirements are minimized, which add even more value to the cost-effective solution.”