NMA recently welcomed new member Hitachi Consulting, the global management consulting and IT services business of Hitachi Ltd, a global technology leader and a catalyst of sustainable societal change. In that same spirit—and building on its technology heritage—Hitachi Consulting is a catalyst of positive business change by delivering measurable, sustainable business results and a better consulting experience. Recently, Hitachi Consulting helped Shell Albian Sands increase truck availability to 83% and sustain it at that level, improving the mine’s production potential.
Hitachi Consulting says it “has more than 25 years in the metals and mining sector spanning over 100 successful projects worldwide delivering over $700 million in operational value. Our mission is to preserve mining portfolio value by optimising and sustaining the performance of physical, human, systems and data assess across mining operations. We deploy technology enabled management consulting services from mines to mills to markets.” As a Hitachi Ltd company, it can partner with clients across all of mining capital, environmental and safety requirements to fulfil its “social innovation vision of contributing to society through the development of superior, original technology and products.”
An example of its work is the Mobile Maintenance Excellence Initiative (MMEI) Shell Albian Sands launched in partnership with Celerant Consulting (now Hitachi Consulting), Caterpillar and Finning. The goal of the program was an ambitious double-digit increase in truck availability.
High truck availability is a key to achieving production at or near Shell Albian’s Muskeg River mine’s design capacity of 155,000 barrels of bitumen per day.
Shell Albian Sands invited Caterpillar and Finning to participate in MMEI. Finning supplies Shell Albian Sands with heavy equipment as well as mechanics to perform on site maintenance and repair. About 200 Finning employees work at the Muskeg River mine alongside the roughly 1,300 employed there by Shell Albian Sands.
MMEI team members from Shell Albian Sands, Finning and Caterpillar gathered weekly with Celerant to shape the improvement initiative; clearly define and document the improved processes and the respective roles and responsibilities for Finning and Shell Albian Sands personnel; review project progress and assign new action items to remove barriers and move MMEI forward. Once the maintenance process was redesigned, Celerant worked with the MMEI team to customise the management control and reporting system (MCRS®). Today the MCRS drives timely, coordinated decision making and ensures that people at each level of authority have ready access to critical data as well as the power to influence the results for which they are accountable.
Truck availability increased to 83% and sustained at that level, improving the mine’s production potential. Also, operating costs were trimmed more than C$30 million. Mean time between truck stoppages increased from 42 to 72 hours. Preventive maintenance completion rate improved from 52% to 100%.