It is worth reiterating Pragma Tim Beavon’s message on the importance of interdepartmental coordination in heavy industry – particularly mining – during commodity booms, such as the current surge in metals. Organisations must make the most of this opportunity to generate higher revenue.
By Jimmy Swira
A lot has been said about AI and digitisation: how they are reshaping and revolutionising machinery maintenance – all the familiar buzzwords. They all carry weight, all true.
In fact, the results are there to see in the improvement of asset reliability, which translates into higher productivity and profit.
But this cannot happen in a vacuum – not without the vital role of humans working towards shared goals. At the end of the day, actionable data requires timely, informed decisions – made by humans, at that!
Now here’s the snag: getting all the big egos heading these departments to work together is not always easy.
The importance of collaboration
In a previous article, Pragma‘s Tim Beavon told Machinery Maintenance Matters about the importance of collaboration between operations and maintenance departments to improve reliability. He lamented a common oversight in industry: the assumption that maintenance plan is firmly in place, while, in reality, operations and maintenance often function separately in silos. “Usually, operators run equipment and artisans fix it, with a limited understanding of each other’s perspectives.”
As they pursue production targets, operations need optimal asset reliability. However, this can only be achieved when the maintenance team carries out scheduled tasks diligently.
Unfortunately, this is not always the case, and it remains one of the main causes of unplanned downtime, especially in mining operations.
Working in silos is detrimental
The challenge in African heavy industry – the situation in mining companies being a prime example – is that operations and maintenance teams often work in isolation. This practice, or rather malpractice, known as working in silos, is to the detriment of critical machinery.
Unavoidably, downtime tends to occur during periods of peak production demand. When things spiral out of control during a crisis, there is finger-pointing -neither department accepts culpability. Beavon noted: “When emotions are high, instead of finding the root cause of the problem, personnel from the two divisions (maintenance and operations) can resort to blaming each other.”
Evidently, the silo culture is an obstacle to machinery reliability if it is allowed to hinder interdepartmental coordination.
Well-meaning, unintended consequences
While silos can hinder collaboration, it is worth noting they were never designed to do so. In most cases, they are well-meaning: designed to help workers specialise and actualise their skills or potential, as seen in departments such as finance, IT, marketing, and HR.
Unfortunately, two challenges (unintended consequences) often arise.
Firstly, each department may use specialised tools that do not integrate well, hindering process or data sharing. Secondly, so focused on meeting their own goals, departments may develop tunnel vision – becoming inward-looking at the expense of broader organisational objectives.
When this affects reliability, it becomes even more problematic.
No better time for coordination
However, the challenge can be addressed, and there is no better time for mining companies to improve cross-departmental coordination than in the current environment.
Mining companies – especially in gold production – may miss out on the current boom if they don’t foster interdepartmental collaboration between their operations and maintenance. There has never been a better time to ensure the reliability of mission-critical machinery than now. The global price of gold has hit a high of approximately $3,615.89 per ounce (and indications are that it could go even higher).
As Beavon observed, sticking to a siloed maintenance approach may hinder gold miners from making the most of the boom. To manage this challenge, he suggested greater collaboration between departments to implement effective maintenance programmes. “Efficient organisations remove barriers to problem-solving by combining production and engineering skills and establishing shared goals, such as the plant’s throughput,” he stated, highlighting the significance of training team members. “Training team members to understand why equipment fails and teaching them how to prevent failures helps improve performance.”
For collaboration to be effective, it should be driven from the top down. It goes without saying: when departments communicate, machines work, and production increases.
