A participatory approach to management of operations in the mining industry

Effective management in the mining and allied industries is both an art as well as a science. People are people, and for this reason managers are people, first and foremost, however they are also the face and force of the company culture and objectives. The complexity of management is compounded within the mining industry as a result of the inherent cyclical demands for products, and high rate of attrition within the workforce. Based on this researcher’s experience in the mining industry, he has developed the Composite Performance Framework (CPF) to aid managers in achieving corporate objectives. This dissertation presents the foundation and a detailed description of the CPF followed by three case studies to demonstrate its efficacy. By applying a process of change management systematically it has been found by this researcher that the process is more sustainable, than if an extemporary process were to be implemented. This is demonstrated within the case studies found in Ch 6. Effective and timely communication at all levels will assist in the implementation process. The case studies present the implementation of the CPF in different types of mining operations in order to demonstrate that the CPF will work in almost any mining operation. These diverse case studies include a mine development in Africa, a mining engineering company and a start-up operation in the South Pacific. The results from the CPF demonstrate the efficacy of the CPF in different mining operation environments. In the absence of sound management and policy enforcement, it was found by this researcher that the change process can revert to the easiest option, the CPF will assist into the future in this regard. All processes and procedures need to be imbedded into the system and or culture as the case may be. Various appendices are provided that can guide the change manager with regard to managing people and aspects of the change process.