5 Ways to Digitally improve your shift today

1. Get a screen into your meeting room

Stop accepting printed or written plans, reports and action lists. Odds are that if you are reading this, you have some kind of digital shift-planning or ops-planning software in place. The best way to undermine the benefits you could get from an integrated shift planning solution is to ignore the live data and live system during your pre-shift meeting.

By accepting re-worked schedules, augmented reports and hand-written activities into your day’s plan, you are

actively preventing adoption of a data-driven mindset. Using the live system, or a 3D visualization and reporting tool directly connected to it during the meeting does not only ensure that you get the latest data, but it also raises awareness of the capabilities or shortcomings your system has, and gives you the opportunity to get your system vendor involved to improve it.

2. Fix the data, not the report

Insist on fixing the data at the source. Don’t accept edited Excel or PowerPoint reports if you have a digital source that is wrong or outdated. Get the underlying system owner into your meeting, and turn on the heat. And I’m not talking about the IT owner – I’m talking about the operational manager that owns the data that is used in your meeting to keep people safe and drive productivity. Experiencing the frustration that wrong, old or missing data causes in person is a great motivator to go back and fix the problem where it starts.

3. Subscribe to an online optimizer

I know, it sounds like something only sophisticated operations with deep pockets can do. Yet you can submit even simple Excel-based schedules to an online optimization engine and get it to remove bottlenecks, improve grade, reduce waiting time or suggest improved resource assignments in seconds. AI and advanced prescriptive analytics are real, and it works.

Modern advanced optimizers can be activated as a service – meaning that you don’t have to buy a whole suite of software and spend years perfecting models and algorithms before you can get benefits. Try it – you will be surprised!

4. Get your IT guy to attend the meeting

No digital mine works without reliable, fast and secure communication networks. Get your IT organization into your meetings. Invite your CIO to one or two meetings to let him or her experience reality with you. Let them see first-hand how poor connectivity causes unsafe assumptions or how unplanned work due to the unavailability of operational information disrupts the entire shift. Reliable networks and systems make all the difference. Make the IT guy your friend!

5. Speaking of friends…

When your system breaks again, don’t send your digital provider an email. Invite them to join your meetings for a week. Let them sit with you to see what works, and what seems like a great idea in some shiny, airconditioned office, but doesn’t work in a real mine.

Partnering with your digital supplier in this way will get you much, much farther (and faster!) than referring to contracts and service level agreements to manage a relationship.

Embracing digital technologies and innovative solutions in mining operations is about people, not just about the tools. Achieving both improved safety and increased production is only possible if teams collaborate, and the supporting digital partners are real partners that work with you to solve problems, instead of selling you licenses and leaving.

For more information about how MineRP Powered by Epiroc can partner with you to improve your operations today, contact us on info.minerp@minerp.com, or read more on MineRP.com, or Epiroc.com.