By Luke McGarry. During the early stages of my career working as an underground operator and supervisor, I was fortunate to work for a mining contractor whom valued quality shift planning and recognised this as a key capability that underpinned a profitable contracting business. Working for an organisation that valued...
Benchmarks ain’t benchmarks
By Andrew Wells. For those of us old enough, you may recall that according to Sol “oils aint oils”. Well for me benchmarks ain’t benchmarks. The simplicity and one size fits all approach often used for benchmarking first hit me when as a young GM I had feedback about a planned...
Life as a FIFO: Looking After Our Mental Health
By Gustavo Picorelli. As the world of mining grows and lifestyles change, more and more people working in the industry are doing FIFO work and leaving their homes and families on a regular basis. As someone who has been doing this throughout my career – and almost every week for the...
Integrity – Do all mine plans have it?
By Tracey Rock. As an Engineer, I am drawn to tools that make my work easier and result in a better outcome. In my 27 years in the industry, mine planning software has developed as a tool that makes it easier to evaluate multiple, often 10’s and 100’s of mine...
Mentoring the Titans
By Robin Arman. In Homer’s ‘The Odyssey’ in ancient Greece, Mentor was a trusted friend and adviser of the king of Ithaca, Odysseus. An aged Mentor was tasked to raise and teach Odysseus’ young son Telemachus, and protect Odysseus’ palace and wife Penelope, while Odysseus was leading his army in...
Collaborative Cost Modelling
Significant productivity leaps often require a new generation of tools that liberate us to think and behave differently. What was once difficult, becomes painless. The complex and opaque is made straightforward and transparent. Better business decisions become possible. And the basis of all business decisions – from greenfield developments, to...
For Want of a Nail
The story goes that it was late in August, 1485, as the summer heat was starting to soften, when one of the king’s grooms lead the monarch’s own favourite steed to the royal blacksmith. “Shoe him quickly, for the king needs to ride him to battle this very day,” said...
Aquila’s Talwood on the market
Aquila Resources Limited is seeking buyers for its Talwood project in Central Queensland. We thought many might find interesting the information we have on our asset database. Enable has maintained a coal asset database for nearly a decade. Over time, we have collected a lot of public and industry information...
Some Simple Facts About Coal Tenure
The coal tenure landscape has changed materially in recent years. Since January 2013, more than 1100 pieces of tenure, approximately half, have been relinquished in Queensland. That equates to 386,384 km2, an area greater than the size of Germany. Tenure held has contracted to the more traditionally explored and...
Man vs System
“In the past the man has been first; in the future the system must be first.” So wrote Frederick Winslow Taylor, often called the father of management consulting, in the introduction to his 1911 seminal classic “The Principles Of Scientific Management”. Taylor, born into a wealthy Quaker family, whose ancestor...