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Prospecting and Mining Leases
Mining Plan Implementation
Geologist/Exploration
Mining Engineer
Maintenance
Maintenance of Equipment
The
"good-fair-average-poor" rating at the appraisal time to
determine the quantum of payment for the next year, is
no longer valid and the hollowness unacceptable. Tools
for measuring performance at every level are in place
and the ratings mostly self appraisals are more of a
necessity than a formality.
A new entrant is ambitious and has expectations in a new
job. The management expects tangible results. When more
and more disciplines are becoming inter-related,
definition becomes a more complex affair and delineating
sphere of responsibility and accountability assumes
great importance to instill pride and self confidence of
an employee.
In mining, the days where clear demarcation of job
functions existed are gone. A look at the general
modules would indicate that the chief executive has to
have real vision in defining individual and collective
roles.
Modules:
Module A
Prospecting and Mining Leases
Land matters
Exploration
Mining Plans
Environmental Issues
Dust control
Noise control
Water regime
Afforestation
Planning and Development
Module B
Mining Plan implementation
Obtaining permissions, relaxations and exemptions
Operational issues
Review meetings
Budgets
Personnel
Equipment
Cost
Safety Organization
Audits
Equipment
Personnel
Budget
Cost
Capital assets
Rehabilitization
Performance appraisal
Module C
Geologist
Exploration
Plans and Sections
Preparation and preservation
Quality control
Geological inventory
Study of associated rocks and minerals and stacks
Module D
Mining Engineer
Mining Lease and land holdings
Direction in mining operations as per approved mining
plans
Systematic development of mineral deposits
Conservation of mineral
Protection of environment
Waste disposal
Maintenance of records of land holdings, lease areas and
applications
Payment of royalty, mineral taxes and statutory payments
Protection of surface rights
Timely submission of statutory reports and adherence to
statutory provisions.
Mine development
Mining operations
Utilities and infra structure
Safety enforcement
Code of procedures and policy decisions
Establishment of enforcement internal committees
Interaction with external agencies
Module E
Maintenance of
equipment
Maintenance facilities
Tools, utilities and infra structure
Maintenance budgets
Establishment of work order system
Identification procedures and establishment of records
and database
Policy decisions on overhaul, issue of materials,
disposal of replaced items, oils and lubricants and
demarcation of responsibilities
Now this broad based list highlights the complexities
and intricacies that need ironing out to ensure a smooth
system and establishment of acceptable norms.
The CEO is concerned in the following areas and need to
continuously monitor and improve to survive in this
competitive world.
Setting up Group agenda
To maintain the image of the organization
To inculcate accountability at all levels
To establish levels and standards of performance
To keep the team performance continuously improving
To identify and improve potential
To eliminate stagnation and boredom and stimulate
involvement.
Yes it is nice to touch the fringes but how to get down
to brass tacks. Ultimately any amount of planning and
organization amounts to nothing unless there is
involvement at every level and typically in a mine what
counts mostly is meeting the production targets first.
These days statutory provisions clearly demarcate the
duties and responsibilities of every employee and at
every level. A 'miner' can no longer be individualistic.
Interlinked dependencies play a major part and therefore
it has become a necessity to get involved in the
immediate sphere of influence.
Records need not be written as before but are
automatically logged and monitored. And the access to
information is almost instantaneous to the extent a
security module is always added and access levels set up
in a software program.
To excel and be accountable at individual level it
becomes a necessity to clearly know what is expected and
how this is rated and how the performance can be
improved. Advancements take place continuously and
therefore this is also a continuous process.
It becomes therefore a necessity to break down the
activities, evaluate the levels, both at the individual
and the interlinking and as more and more areas lose
their threshold, teams emerge instead of appointed
designations.
To cite an example, the nature of work of a surveyor and
geologist is interlinked as that of a geologist and a
mining engineer. Mines manager used to be a lose term to
absorb all responsibilities but with the emerging
technologies, issues, and requirements, the function
becomes mostly that of a coordinator but a very skillful
one at that. Holding the teams together, and ensuring
that they understand their roles and standards and also
keep a constant watch on these parameters and raise to
the expectations becomes tricky and calls for a suave
operator.
Now what could be the standards of performance and how
to set up these calls for a detailed dissection and is
beyond the scope of this article. However some
indicators can be:
HEAVY EQUIPMENT OPERATOR
Machine availability time on production
Rate of production as tones per hour, tones per shift
Cycle time and queuing
How the loader-hauler matching achieved performance?
Fuel consumption per hour/kms per litre
DRILLING AND
BLASTING
Meters per hour and meters per shift
Relation between production and non production delays
Bit life
fuel consumption per hour and per meter of drilling
Percentage of secondary drilling and blasting needed
Relation with fill factor of loaders
Size of blast, vibration, lost time in moving out and
moving in of equipment
Quality of floor and working faces
powder ratio and cost per tone
MAINTENANCE
Equipment availability for production
Ratio of breakdown repairs to scheduled maintenance
Frequency of running repairs
implementation of work order system
control on spares and units and whether inventory levels
are to budget
BUDGETS can be broken down to
mine life time
next five years
next one month
next day
organizing the daily schedules
Budgets need not be on cost basis but can include a wide
range of parameters. For example, the miner can handle
the daily budget, the foreman the next week, the
assistant manager the next month and the seniors can
take the yearly and long range budgets. This budget can
be broken down to items which in turn can be prioritized
and this importance quantified.
A summary of such a broken- down itemized activity can
be enlarged to include detailing and discussions.
Informal and formal meetings of groups would reveal
enormous possibilities, When once these are listed down,
discussed ,understood and agreed upon, The operation can
become a game with a set of standards to meet. When this
forms the basis of rewards and is continuously monitored
and displayed, the heartburns and dissatisfactions are
eliminated and individual attempt to excel is set in
motion which would result in desired performance levels.
The rewards to match performance levels should also be
in place after study in different conditions and an
achievable level and quantified increments worked out.
When such a system is evolved with the clear
understanding of each employee on the role to play,
levels to achieve and standards to maintain, lot of time
is released for doing useful work at higher levels which
otherwise is lost in settling issues and attending to
avoidable work. The system would also ensure that the
levels of performance is fixed for all levels of
hierarchy and no room is given for unproductive or
wasteful work.
Such a system was evolved by the author in a large
limestone mine and by the second year the team jelled
and everyone was able to absorb additional
responsibilities and eliminate non productive and
repetitive work. Since the scope of this article is
limited detailed appraisal sheets for surveyors,
engineers, geologists, managers, etc could not be
included. If the response to this article indicates so
desires, such templates could be provided in the future
at
everythingmining.com
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