In a  recent article published in Mining Magazine, Dassault Systèmes’ takes a look at the benefits of making mining lean,  then illustrated through several case studies. Highlights from the article follow below:

“Making Mining Lean”

Even though the mining industry faces challenges that are unique to its value chain, most of its problems, if not all, have been experienced in other industries in one form or another. Solutions for such problems have already been put in place in other industries.

For mining companies to effectively execute on lean practices to increase productivity and innovate, a virtual mine framework based on a three-tiered approach: Operational Stability, Mine Execution Excellence, and Business Agility is required.

• Operational Stability brings consistency to operational performance by reducing variability through the stabilization of processes.
• Mining Execution Excellence enables continuous improvement of processes.
• Business Agility is the ability to identify, simulate, validate, and adapt business processes more robustly to changing conditions.

To enable these transformative steps, mining companies should adopt the following technological changes:

• Clearly define business processes that enable mining and plant operations to function and then implement the change management needed to put such business processes in practice.
• Establish excellence in business governance to gain visibility and control over planning and production. Key aspects include: collaboration across the organization, synchronizing operations across multiple departments; and tracking mining activities and responding to variances in real-time. A governance layer contains the following elements:
  • Collaboration across the enterprise
  • Excellence in business planning
  • Compliance to corporate commitments
  • A visualization and control center
• Employ a visualization and control center, enabled by a platform that can interoperate with existing and diverse systems to bridge silos across data sources and functions.

The article concludes with two short case studies on Lean Practices in two different industries. The first story illustrates an example from Nuclear which would be applicable in mining: “Collaborative Design, Engineering, and Project Management”.

This blog highlights a recent Mining Magazine article “Making Mining Lean”,by Dassault Systèmes’  Jose Santos, Natural Resources Solution Director, and Nicolas Jeannee, Natural Resources Mining Solution Director.

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On the web: 3DS.com/natural-resources/