On a recent visit to the site, Finning News spoke to Ed Buscombe, Imerys' Mining Production Manager, about the change in direction for the business and its vision for the future.


Ed: “For the last 10 years we have been working with contractors for our main excavator extraction and loading fleet. In 2014 we took the opportunity to examine our existing contract and set about analysing our overall fleet mix and production requirements.


“Initially we were looking to work with contractors to renew equipment, as we had challenges with the current fleet that was made up of different types of excavators, with different configurations. Essentially in some cases, we had to do more prep work to be able to use one unit instead of another.


“This in-turn required additional work and mine management time. With an aging plant fleet, we also had to take into consideration the availability of certain units. We have also faced issues when trying to secure good operators for both our in-house plant fleet


and the contracted out services. This has led to increased use of agency staff, which creates further challenges. This is mainly because you can’t invest time in training and the development of advanced competency levels for specific applications; in general it is difficult to attract people to this type of role within the industry.


“So faced with these issues, we needed to look carefully at our next solution. From a financial perspective, we certainly didn’t want to incur large upfront capital expenditure on a new equipment fleet. So this is why we went out to the market with an open mind, to look for new ideas. As part of this fact-finding mission, we spoke to Finning, who has for years supported our in-house team maintaining our fleet of 775 off highway trucks.


“Its Finning Managed Solutions team came to site to look at the operation and analyse the production process, which in some cases requires equipment to be moved up to 6 times a day on occasions to get the blend of product right.


FINNING CAT


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