CASE STUDY
Shutdown strategy overhaul drives major production and revenue boost
Client: Metalliferous Mine
Location: Northern Territory
Duration: Three Months
Context
Our client’s new leadership team suspected they could reduce costs and lift uptime and revenue by reducing the annual number of larger maintenance shutdowns for its concentrator assets. Before making such a significant change, they wanted to understand the constraints, explore different shutdown strategy models, and confirm whether the optimum strategy was both achievable and worthwhile. Minset was brought in to test that assumption.
Minset deployed several highly experienced team members to site, working side-by-side with local teams to understand the operation and explore what was truly possible. Through this hands-on review, we identified clear opportunities to shift from four major shutdown events each year to three five-day events. This new strategy strengthened performance by dramatically increasing uptime and availability, at the same time increasing shutdown planning horizons and lifting equipment reliability. In fact, with further work, Minset also identified the potential to move to just two events a year after some additional changes are embedded and operations stabilise.
Approach
On site, the Minset team found a dedicated, safety-focused site team working hard but trapped in reactive work, unable to step back to prepare and execute fixed plant shutdowns as they wanted to. Minset:
- Ran an intensive audit, including a maturity assessment to identify gaps, opportunities, and change readiness.
- Facilitated an on-site, two-day workshop to capture existing processes, identify improvements, and engage the teams around future possibilities.
- Collaborated with 10 stakeholders across operations, maintenance, metallurgy and engineering to ensure they were engaged, aligned and contributed to all project outputs.
- Conducted a whole-of-business impact analysis to support reliable ROI forecasting and risk management.
- Identified a new cadence of three five-day events, smoothing operations between shutdowns, increasing event preparation time, reducing overheads, and lifting worker and contractor satisfaction.
- Created a practical implementation plan and roadmap to drive the new shutdown strategy, along with tailored improvement plans for other assets, including the crushing circuits, heavy media plant, and filtration systems.
- Used a structured reporting process to keep the client informed with clear recommendations and advice.
Results
People
- Engaged 10 stakeholders in a targeted two-day workshop to understand processes and align teams
- Equipped the on-site team the practical tools to shift from a reactive to a planned state
Process
- Applied robust systems to identify gaps and lift maintenance shutdown maturity across the site
- Identified clear major shutdown decision drivers to guide future shutdown program planning
Physical
- New shutdown strategy is expected to deliver an additional $14m in year-one revenue, with a further $10m expected each subsequent year
- Identified ~$1m direct costs in waste and inefficiencies, reducing emergent work
- Built a comprehensive, practical implementation and action plan to streamline future events
