Tag Archives: Metals Industry

Over the next five years, mining and metals companies are expected to spend between $25 billion to $30 billion annually to maintain their assets.

Largely driven by efforts to improve operational efficiency, reduce downtime, immediately reduce costs, meet sustainability goals, and manage operational risks in an increasingly volatile market, mining and metals executives are motivated to start their asset management transformation now. Delaying this transformation could result in lost competitive advantages, higher operational costs, and increased regulatory or market pressures.

Over the next five years, the mining and metals industry is projected to invest heavily in the maintenance of fixed and mobile assets. Various reports indicate that the industry is expected to allocate a significant portion of its CAPEX to maintaining and upgrading its assets. A substantial part of this investment will be directed toward maintaining critical assets required to meet global demand for minerals essential for the energy transition. In a recent survey conducted by Global Data, 48% of the companies surveyed indicated they plan to increase investments in technologies like AI and IoT sensors for equipment upkeep over the next two years.

Investment in predictive maintenance is becoming a top priority for many mining operations. Companies are leveraging their EAM’s with advancing technologies like Digital Twins, AI and IoT, along with other reliability and planning applications, and significantly transforming asset management and the asset lifecycle. These advancements in technology are expected to reduce maintenance costs by 20-30%.

Mining and metals companies integrating Enterprise Asset Management (EAM), Computerized Maintenance Management Systems (CMMS), AI, and IoT are experiencing several quantifiable benefits, including:

• Improved Asset Reliability and Uptime: Utilizing a combination of AI, IoT sensors and Digital Twins provides continuous real-time monitoring of equipment health allowing companies to predict potential failures before they occur while reducing the reliance on reactive and scheduled maintenance – reducing unplanned downtime and fewer equipment breakdowns, increasing equipment availability and extending asset lifecycles.
• Cost Reduction: A predictive maintenance capability helps avoid costly emergency repairs and reduces unnecessary scheduled maintenance, saving on labor and spare parts. It also ensures that the right parts are available when needed, minimizing overstock and understock issues, which helps reduce capital expenditure tied to inventory. It optimizes the energy usage of equipment by adjusting operational parameters in real-time, leading to lower energy consumption.
• Scalability and Flexibility: Leveraging these technologies together, allows companies to scale their asset management strategies as they grow, adapting to changes in operational needs without significant disruptions. Maintenance scheduling based on asset condition rather than time-based intervals, ensures that resources are used effectively, reducing downtime and improving workflow efficiency. They provide a holistic view of all assets, enabling better coordination between teams while improving “wrench-time” productivity and the execution of maintenance and operational tasks. It delivers a single platform to access real-time data across the entire asset portfolio, improving visibility and control over operations for optimizing performance and recommendations for future operations.

USC partners with your organization and coaches your people to significantly impact performance outcomes and accelerate Operational Excellence

USC brings a tailored, structured, and disciplined methodology, along with a range of tools and techniques we apply collaboratively with client’s personnel. Whatever your challenge, we are the people who work with our clients to find full potential and unlock the hidden value.

USC help to identify waste, redundancies, and ineffective processes, and then rapidly recover the prioritized opportunities, and convert them to improvements in performance and operating profit. Further, our people embed with client teams to develop, enhance, prototype, validate and implement asset management strategies to drive, sustain and perpetuate improvements in asset lifecycles and equipment reliability, while changing how plans, schedules, and work is executed. In short, USC implements measurable, sustainable changes that drive asset performance and financial improvements.

• Increased Wrench Time (up to 25% improvement) – Reducing non-productive time through improved work-order generation and prioritization, maintenance teams spend less time searching for work-orders, tracking down parts or waiting for approvals.
• Reduction in Travel & Downtime (up to 20% time savings) – Optimizing the routing and scheduling of maintenance tasks and reducing travel time between jobs to maximize “time on tools”.
• Faster Work-order Completion (up to 30% efficiency gains) – Reducing delays in task assignment, approval and completion tracking, technicians can move quickly from one job to the next by ensuring all the necessary tools and parts are available at the work site, eliminating delays caused by missing resources.
• Optimized Spare Parts Management (up to 15% time reduction) – Faster access to parts and accurate spare part forecasting reduce time on sourcing, stocking and searching while ensuring tools & parts are available for tasks.
• Better Data-Driven Decision Making (up to 20% longer asset life spans) – Collecting and analyzing needed information provides actionable insights that support planning and allow for more informed and pro-active decision making, often delaying the need for capital-intensive replacements.

USC clients experience measurable operational and financial results that significantly improve both the efficiency and profitability of their operations. Benefits delivered may include a 10-20% increase in overall equipment availability due to reduced unplanned downtime and optimized maintenance schedules and a 10-15% improvement in equipment utilization as predictive maintenance reduces the time equipment is out of service.

USC Helps You Tackle Key Challenges

• Optimize maintenance strategies and increase equipment availability operational output
• Predict asset integrity and reliability needs and improve time on tools
• Mitigate risks through stronger stakeholder partnerships, while removing redundancies in the supply chain
• Overcoming cultural and communication issues with contractors, while ensuring quality expectations

Do you want to understand how prepared your company is to drive needed asset management performance and reliability improvements and what the key focus areas that will contribute to lower operating costs? Contact us today.

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It is commonly believed that the project stakeholders have delivered their project commitments once the asset had been successfully commissioned.

Given the fact that recent studies show that 65-80% of large capital projects in the mining and metals industry frequently experience performance issues and fail to meet their budgets and/or schedules, it’s no wonder why executives and owner teams are distracted from envisaging the outcomes beyond the commissioning phase. The stark reality is that a project can only be regarded as a success once the asset sustainably reaches name plate production within the projected timeframe.

Senior leadership needs to focus more on the strategic business case and outcomes of the project and enable the acceleration of operational and organizational maturity growth beyond ramp-up.  By focusing on “culture and systems of work by design” earlier in the project development cycle, prior to or during the detailed engineering phase, companies can experience a positive impact on Net Present Value (NPV) while positioning the future operational organization to enhance organizational capabilities and drive maturity growth.

Establishing the needed operational foundation that enables data-driven decision making, operational excellence and continuous improvement during capital project execution and post operational ramp-up, creates a culture that fosters long-term growth, resilience and scalability across the asset. Furthermore, the early investment in designing the “systems of working” with the supporting management operating systems, while integrating with today’s advancements in AI, automation, Digital Twins, EAM, ERP, IoT, robotics and other technologies positions the asset to emerge from the capital project at a much higher maturity stage and set of organizational capabilities. By leveraging the insights and efficiencies these systems and tools provide, mining and metals companies can not only optimize their immediate operations but also position themselves for sustained success in a rapidly evolving industry.

Yes, integrating management operating systems with AI, IoT and other enterprise platforms during capital project execution can have a positive impact on NPV and cash flow. “Systems of Working” help streamline project execution, reduce delays, and improve project scheduling, allowing the company to start generating revenue earlier than expected. Additionally, avoiding project delays reduces the discounting effect on future cash flows. These same systems can help identify and mitigate risks such as supply chain disruptions, equipment failures, and market fluctuations. By reducing these risks, companies can avoid unforeseen costs and improve project reliability.

Systems of working provide the project and operating teams the ability to improve operational efficiency by optimizing resource allocation, reducing downtime, and minimizing waste. Additionally, predictive maintenance supported by enabling technologies, process automation, and enhanced supply chain management can lower equipment failure rates, energy consumption, and labor costs, while helping owners to significantly reduce both capital and operational expenditures. Creating a “Culture by Design” with the supporting “Systems of Work” early in your capital project will directly impact the key drivers of NPV by improving operational efficiency, reducing costs, accelerating revenue generation, and lowering risks.

USC partners with your organization to accelerate Operational Maturity by helping your team create a Culture by Design supported by the needed Systems of Working

Since 1968, USC Consulting Group has been working with clients to address the challenges and avoid the pitfalls when creating cultural change and developing systems of working. While the integration of AI, IoT, MOS, EAM and ERP offers tremendous potential in capital project execution in the mining and metals industry, companies must carefully navigate the challenges. Addressing high costs, technical complexity, workforce readiness, and data management are key to overcoming hurdles. Strategic planning, phased implementation, and ongoing system monitoring are critical to successful integration and maximizing financial and operational benefits.

Mining and metals projects often vary in size, complexity, and location, which means the systems of working need to be scalable and adaptable to different environments. Inflexible systems may struggle to scale up or adapt to specific project needs, leading to inefficiencies and higher costs. Our seasoned consultants help the owner team to ensure compatibility with the project environment and to overcome scalability challenges.

The integration of AI, IoT, MOS, EAM and ERP introduces additional layers of complexity in project management, as these systems require continuous monitoring, optimization, and alignment with project objectives. Mismanagement of complex systems may lead to delays, cost overruns, and reduced system effectiveness. USC Consulting Group understands how your project and operating teams can best utilize the needed information while addressing the unique challenges of the mining and metals sector to ensure smoother execution and in-shift adjustments.

Employees and management may resist the changes required to implement these new systems of working, especially if they fear job displacement or lack understanding of the new ways of working. Cultural resistance can slow down or even derail the integration process, leading to project delays and inefficiencies. Our people bring effective change management strategies, including clear communication, training, and involving employees in the transition, that ease resistance.

Misalignment between project stakeholders can cause challenges. Lack of collaboration between the various teams can result in inefficiencies, process failures, or unmet project and/or operational goals. Ensuring early and continuous collaboration between project stakeholders and operational teams helps bridge the gap while ensuring a successful project completion and production ramp-up.

While the long-term benefits of integrating and implementing systems of working are substantial, measuring these benefits and calculating NPV and ROI can be complex, especially when the results are not immediately visible. Stakeholders may become skeptical if they don’t see immediate financial returns, leading to reduced support for continued investments. USC works with the owner’s team to establish clear KPIs and benchmarks for performance improvements, measure progress and demonstrate long-term value.

USC Helps You Tackle Key Challenges

• Align project and operational stakeholders on the strategic business case and operational outcomes
• Develop a high reliability culture focused on breaking down silos and executing work in a safe manner
• Ensure the right resources are at the right place to minimize lost time – enabling safe and disciplined execution
• Control quality of work at the point of execution by identifying off specification and enabling in-shift correction
• Identify potential roadblocks proactively during mine planning and solve complexity during the planning process

Do you want to understand how creating a Culture by Design can accelerate the future asset to achieve the strategic business case and nameplate performance targets safely?

Want to find out more about how USC can help you uncover the hidden value loitering in your capital projects? Contact us today.

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What do you do when your demand is greater than your ability to meet it? This is one of the big issues some of our clients in the metals industry are facing these days as increased demand is matching or exceeding what is believed to be their capacity. Facing that situation, what can be done other than turning down sales?

Our customers who are dealing with demand management problems tend to come to us when they’re mired in what they believe is a lesser-of-two-evils choice. An option can be to increase capacity by investing in new capital assets but this involves investing millions of dollars and will demand be there given the long lead time for those assets. A possible second option is to increase capacity by expanding the hours of operation either by hiring additional staff or through overtime.  Again, this leads to an increase in costs, especially if hiring additional staff also has a lead time as employees are hired and trained. So they come to us looking for a third option: Doing more with the assets they already have.

At USC Consulting Group, that’s our wheelhouse. It’s what we’ve been doing for companies for over 50 years.

We’re not about telling our clients to throw out machinery that’s working pretty well, open their wallets, and upgrade to state-of-the-art technology. Most of the time, that’s a huge expense that’s just not necessary. Instead, we do the hard work of rolling up our sleeves and finding hidden opportunities for improvements with your current assets. It’s about doing more with what you have and overcoming demand management problems.

Hidden opportunities

What are hidden opportunities, exactly? They are efficiencies in your operation that you’re not aware of. We find them by first listening to you describe your issues, bottlenecks and stumbling blocks. Then, we look at your existing management operating system and standard work procedures like a detective, looking for ways to kick your efficiency up a notch. We find the opportunities that you may not see. Nine times out of ten, we find them by looking at issues that are generally accepted as “just the way things are.” A few examples:

• Excessive cycle time. Cycle time to produce a part could be reduced by redistributing the work between cycles so that more of the activities take place in parallel vs. in series.
• Excessive time for changeovers on a machine. There are activities that could be started and even completed before the changeover starts.

We start the process of finding hidden opportunities by finding the answers to a few questions.

• Where is the problem?
• Is it technical or tactical?
• Is it feasible?

If it’s technical, maybe it’s time to bring in the engineers to improve on your machines’ functions. If it’s tactical, we look at your processes, the way you’re using those machines, to find those hidden efficiencies.

We also take a hard look at the feasibility of your goal. If you’re producing 900 tons per day and the demand is 1,100, can we reasonably get you there? Sometimes the answer is no. Sometimes we can split the difference and get you close to the goal. Sometimes we can hit that goal and then some.

Why frontline buy-in is essential

At times, our recommendations for new efficiencies in your time-tested processes might ruffle some feathers, especially those of your crews on the frontlines, men and women who are doing those jobs for a living. That’s why we involve them from the beginning. We don’t swoop in at the end of our process and hand them a playbook on how to do their jobs better. Instead, they help us write that playbook. Your frontline employees’ buy-in is crucial to the success of any changes you want to make.

Frankly, working with your frontline employees makes our job easier, too. They give us the lowdown on what’s happening in your operation. We hear what’s going right, and at times, what’s going wrong. They often can see what the problems are, but not know how to fix them. We can get the single source of truth from your frontlines and implement plans to fix the issues and improve productivity. It’s crucial to finding where efficiencies can happen.

To read more about how crucial frontline buy-in is to the process, read our blog, Why Getting Buy-in from Frontline Employees is Key.

At USCCG, we pride ourselves in finding hidden opportunities for efficiencies that will help smooth out bottlenecks and allow our customers to meet growing demand with their current assets. Please get in touch if you’d like to find out more.

For a deeper look at demand management problems and other challenges and how we find hidden opportunities in Metals manufacturing operations, download our free eBook: “Challenges For The Metals Industry: How USC Consulting Group Can Help”

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