Bluefield 30 in 30

Our guest today, Christian Darby, is an exceptional leader in the maintenance industry. He joins us today to talk about the learnings from his 30 plus years in the mining industry, and how he attributes the success of his fleet to the way he treats his people. Christian is a highly experienced and qualified Maintenance Specialist, with years of experience working in various roles within Australia and around the world. As an inclusive leader and manager, he has a proven record of exceeding performance goals and creating a holistic, sustainable workshop safety culture.In this episode, Christian talks about the importance of taking ownership of the machines he is working on to improve fleet reliability and asset performance. He shares some of the best and worst experiences he's had over the years and his approach to improving work executive quality.We talk about why developing an asset management plan is one of the most important factors in rectifying a reactive workshop and how this flows into every area of the site, instilling clarity and focus. Christian also shares his advice for aspiring maintenance managers, which is to focus on the people. If you treat people well and give your trust freely, the people will buy in and the overall performance of the fleet will improve. LINKS:Website: https://www.bluefield.com.au/en/Christian LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/christian-darby-28635727/?originalSubdomain=au

Our guest today has been at the forefront of operational reliability improvement in various industries around the world for many years. Dick Pettigrew joins us today, sharing from his extensive experience as we discuss his integrated approach to design, maintenance and operations.   With a degree in Chemical Engineering and a love for machinery, Dick started out working in process engineering support. As he progressed into design and project management, Dick began to observe fundamental issues surrounding the approach to reliability improvement and maintenance operations. In this episode, Dick shares about his career journey, some of the major learnings of his experience thus far and his holistic approach to problem solving on site, not just within maintenance reliability.   We discuss how output improvement is more valuable than maintenance cost reductions, how there’s a difference between the problem and the cause and that taking a broadened approach from reliability improvement into total manufacturing improvement is what will create sustainable improvements.   Dick talks us through some of his experiences improving outcomes and how the assessment process itself isn’t as important as the commitment from the leadership team and people on site to implement the improvements. We discuss the importance of establishing a good culture and how working with people directly on the floor brings the plant up to standard and restores pride in the operation.   Dick has spent a lot of time creating measurement systems and writing books to take a systematic approach to output improvement. He discusses his asset utilisation model and how combining this with the theory of constraints enabled him to improve the output of many plants he’s been involved in.   We discuss using RCM not as a project but as a way of thinking about plant reliability and how it can make a real difference when utilised this way. Dick shares his advice to aspiring maintenance and operational managers, honing in on the vital component of the human aspect. TOPICS DISCUSSED AND WHERE TO FIND THEM [2:00]: How Dick started out as a chemical engineer and worked in process engineering support, moving into design and project management [3:30]: How Dick became frustrated by the fact that the chemical plants he built weren’t being operated and maintained in the way they were intended to and that they needed an integrated approach to design, maintenance and operations [4:30]: As he moved into maintenance management, Dick discovered there wasn’t a logical approach or codified practises as there were in design [6:00]: How Dick was asked by the vice president of a large plant to discover ways to improve the maintenance and how they hired a maintenance consultant, wrote a book, developed a bench-marking process and performed many assessments on their plants [8:00]: How all problems flow down to maintenance but they developed a measurement system and philosophy that went back to the source of the problem. [10:30]: Combining the asset utilization model with the theory of constraints enabled them to start improving the output of their plants [11:20]: How output improvement is 5-10 times more valuable than maintenance cost reductions [12:30]: The opportunities that exist within the unscheduled operational downtime [14:00]: How Dick retired from the chemical business in 2003 and established his own consulting business which led him to work with an Australian mining company. He rewrote the chemical plant assessment book into mining terms. [16:45]: How they implemented a successful process where the site took ownership for the outcomes of the assessment [18:50]: Relialitics Equipment Condition Supervisor software [21:00]: The assessment process itself isn’t as important as the commitment from the leadership team and people on site to implement the improvement [22:16]: How any errors should be classed as unscheduled downtime, regardless of the source of the problem because there’s a difference between the problem and the cause. [23:00]: How often maintenance and operations are at odds but working together is essential [25:00]: A successful plant that changed to become much more reliable, largely due to the local management and their focus on teamwork. [27:15]: How the state and size of the storeroom is a good indicator of the success of the plant [28:30]: How the commitment from local management and the people on site is what really makes change possible [32:00]: How senior managers understand how difficult improvement can be and have been more understanding of the process than Dick himself [34:20]: How the culture of a place with the right people, attitudes and standards create sustainability [39:00]: Working directly on the floor in clean and tag operations brings the plant up to standard and restores pride in the operation [42:10]: planning and scheduling is there to improve the efficiency of scheduled maintenance downtime but doesn’t actually improve reliability if the quality of the work isn’t there [43:30]: Dick’s advice to aspiring maintenance and operational managers - the human aspect has to be at the forefront of your thinking and the technical aspects of RCM, importantly addressing functional requirements not the machine itself How you think about failures and manage them through the RCM mentality   BOOKS MENTIONED: The Goal by Eliyahu M. Goldratt Reliability-Centered Management by John Moubray   Website: https://www.bluefield.com.au/en/  

Our guest today, Steve Flannery, has clocked up just over 30 years working primarily in the mining industry. Starting off as a plant mechanic apprentice to gain hands on experience, completing his mechanical engineering degree and working in numerous large corporations, Steve has vast experience in asset management with a focus on work quality. Steve’s current role is in Asset Management Services as Manager of Eastern Region (NSW/Vic/NZ) at Bluefield. In this episode, Steve shares his journey in the industry and how having a trade background makes a big difference with people on the ground, understanding the challenges of the job and how to find positive solutions. Steve shares how good maintenance is all about having the right people doing the right work at the right time and that work quality and safety go hand in hand.  He recounts some incidents on site leading to injuries and how in his experience, incidents most commonly involve an asset, design or maintenance element. When asked about his best outcome from assets, Steve shares about the challenge he faced in 2012 to cut his maintenance budget by 30%.  He was able to achieve this target in a sustainable way whilst maintaining fleet performance through strategy and good data. This experience taught Steve a lot and he discusses how he has learnt to focus on the work execution team to obtain the best results. Steve recounts his worst experience as a maintenance manager and his most difficult time dealing with a GM and how he dealt with it. He also shares about his positive fix mentality and leaves us with his top pieces of advice for those looking to enter into the maintenance managers space.   LinkedIn: https://au.linkedin.com/in/stephen-flannery-5880ba14 Website: https://www.bluefield.com.au/en/

Our guest today is Dave Archinal, the South Australian Manager at Bluefield, and he shares from his wealth of knowledge and experience in the reliability and improvement arena.  Having worked in the industry for over 30 years, Dave has travelled the world working on different improvement programs across numerous industries and commodities. In this episode, Dave talks about how he got started in the industry in a mechanical engineering cadetship and how he worked his way through supervisory and planner roles, eventually finding his niche in reliability and improvement.  Dave was encouraged to step up into a supervisory role at the young age of 19 and he shares some of the lessons he learned early on about the importance of asking the right questions, listening and enabling others to perform at their best. As a young apprentice, David was never satisfied with simply completing transactions.  He felt the need to question how the system could be made easier, which led him into maintenance improvement initiatives and eventually into the consulting space.  David shares numerous experiences working with companies to improve their systems by asking the right questions and challenging the existing processes in place. David shares his 3 golden nuggets for those looking to embark on a reliability improvement project and talks about the importance of taking the time to listen to the people around you.  You can have all the ideas in the world, but until you know what the problem is, you won’t find the solution.   LINKS: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/davidarchinal/?originalSubdomain=au Website: https://www.bluefield.com.au/en/ Book: The Knowing Doing Gap

This episode follows on from last week’s discussion with Richard Blayden as he talks about making change in a workplace by lifting people up to a common overall context. Richard discusses what is required to make lasting change and shares examples of how he has helped implement such change through his process utilising organisational charts, focussing on relationship, understanding data and asking the right questions. Richard also shares his top 5 pieces of advice for those wanting to get excellent results from their assets.

Our guest today has quite a few more than 30 years experience under his belt. Recognised as the father of the pipeline model for understanding work management, Richard Blayden was the first to put together a detailed framework for operational readiness processes. His developments have become the standard reference point for many of us in the industry. Starting out his career as a young apprentice, Richard went back to study engineering and progressed into project management. With a broad range of knowledge and depth of experience, he provides asset management and organisational performance improvement services to the mining industry and other industries. In this episode, Richard shares from his years of experience and how and why he came to develop the pipeline model. Having been involved in maintenance and project management from early days, he found that a lot of issues on site were due to a lack of information, communication and poor data analysis. Richard discusses common issues on site and how the pipeline model helps to lift people up to a common goal rather than dwelling on their personal thoughts about a particular issue. Richard discusses his involvement in the BHP maintenance evaluation in the early days and the three key issues that were discovered from that process. He shares his thoughts on why people aren’t good at data analysis, how a character string analysis identified an issue that was costing millions of dollars every year and how identifying and implementing the right process helped to fix it. LINKS: Website: https://www.bluefield.com.au/en/

A system is a tool that delivers on business processes to reach strategic goals.  A common mistake, however, is when businesses focus on the system instead of the outcome the system is intended to achieve. Our guest today is Leigh Jameson, Senior Asset Management Specialist at Bluefield, and he shares from his wealth of knowledge regarding data analysis, systems and processes.  Beginning his career as a motor mechanic and moving into diesel fitting and numerous roles within the mining industry, Leigh’s vast experience has provided a unique perspective into how keeping systems simple lead to the best performance outcomes. Throughout Leigh’s experience in the workplace, he discovered a passion for improving systems and asking the right questions to enable better outcomes and work quality.  Motivated by his desire to thoroughly investigate issues, Leigh spent nights reading and educating himself which eventually led him into the asset management space. In this episode, Leigh shares his passion for systems improvement and how quality data underpinned by good business processes leads to work quality and positive outcomes on site.  He shares some of his positive and challenging experiences over the years and the lessons learned regarding the importance of simplifying systems. A great system is only one aspect of achieving great results.  Leigh shares about the importance of developing a proactive culture on site where each person has a part to play.  When people are valued, motivated, and educated they can work together to look for areas of improvement and reduce administrative burden. Linkedin: https://au.linkedin.com/in/leighjameson Website: https://www.bluefield.com.au/en/

Building on our last episode with Relialytics’ senior analyst Angus Lay, we delve further into the $750,000 unexpected catastrophic engine failure resulting from analysis of post-filtration oil; oil with the red flags filtered out. This prompted a collaboration with Hastings to develop an in-house analysis of the filtration cake to find useful metrics of engine wear, contamination, dirt ingress etc and give critical insight into the problem which turned out to be fleet-wide. Part replacements and sensors for sensors quickly corrected the issue and an important lesson was learnt. Angus and Gerard talk through lesser-known engine issues and sensor misadventure which, although minute in isolation, can be catastrophic as they discuss. LINKS: Angus Lay on LinkedinBluefield’s webRE service Relialytics Website

Collecting and analysing data in a reliable and efficient manner is crucial to obtaining good outcomes on site.  However, even the most in depth reporting and cutting edge systems are only as good as the people on the ground.  For a site to operate at its optimum, there must be trust and clear communication established from the ground up. Our guest today is Angus Lay, Senior Analyst at Relialytics in Brisbane. Growing up on the bayside, Angus had a natural love for the water and started his career as a marine mechanic.  Working his way up through trade roles to service manager, he eventually  moved across into mining where he spent 15 years working in numerous roles including equipment health, conditional monitoring and oil analysis. Angus talks through his current role at Relialytics and how they improve asset reliability through a different approach to analytics which alleviates the hours and money spent on manual data collection.  This enables people on site to spend more time working on the solution, which ultimately leads to better outcomes. As a fourth year apprentice, Angus moved into a service manager role and he shares some experiences which led him to discover the importance of communicating down to the shop floor level, not just focusing on systems and great reporting.  Angus talks about the need for building trust with people on site and how receiving feedback from the team leads to better learning outcomes. Technology is increasing rapidly, enabling better systems and reporting and whilst this provides great opportunity for reliability improvement, Angus reiterates the need for managers to bring their team on the journey to ensure they understand the processes and reasons behind the work they are doing. LINKS: Angus on Linkedin: https://au.linkedin.com/in/angus-lay-07087951 Relialytics: https://www.relialytics.com.au

There is an increasing awareness of the importance of building relationships with team mates and how this makes such a great impact on work ethic, efficiency and productivity in the workplace. Our guest today has 47 years of experience in the workplace and, having worked in every role imaginable from shop floor to management positions, he has a depth of knowledge in the mining industry and the importance of taking care of his team.  Tom Houston was a guest on our podcast earlier this year and we have him back today to take a deeper dive into the skills he utilises to build genuine relationships and obtain great results on site. Humans are very complex creatures, yet often it’s the simple things that make a big difference on our lives.  In this episode, Tom reiterates the importance of keeping things simple and being consistent and fair with the people around us.  When a culture of respect and trust flows from the top, it will naturally filter into all aspect of the company and produce excellent results. For more resources and information, head to the Bluefield Asset Management website. To learn more about getting the most out of your assets, grab a copy of Gerard’s book Simplifying Mining Maintenance.

Our guest today is Greg Sheppard who has a broad range of experience in the mining industry, starting his career as a plant operator and working his way through numerous roles in operations, maintenance, technology and statistical analysis.  Greg is currently the Processing Manager at KCGM, a company who has managed one of the most successful and enduring mining operations in Australia’s history. Through Greg’s decades of experience, he has not only obtained valuable skills and qualifications but he has also come to understand the importance of prioritising people.  In this episode Greg shares his experience in how changing a culture on site leads to better outcomes, both for the business and for the team members. He talks about his insights on leadership roles, how best to manage difficulties on site and the importance of being an open minded team player.   Find Greg on LinkedIn: https://au.linkedin.com/in/greg-sheppard-16615420

Universities and technical colleges teach a lot of valuable things that can be utilised in the workplace but there are some essential skills that simply can’t be taught in a lecture theatre. The values of hard work, understanding priorities, taking care of people, these are things that must be learned through experience.  Knowledge can be gained, but if people aren’t taken care of, a workplace will struggle to thrive. Today’s guest is Heath Hamilton and his life is a great example of someone who has taken an alternative route, gaining his depth of knowledge through life experience.  Struggling with dyslexia, he left school at the age of 13 and began working on his family farm.  With an inherent love for machinery and doing things with his hands, he developed a keen interest in trucks which eventually led him into a long and successful career in the mining industry. In his farming days, Heath was fortunate enough to be surrounded by good people who taught him the ropes and helped to bring out his strengths.  In those early years, he learned the importance of valuing people and recognising what each individual can bring to a workplace.  In this episode, Heath shares some of his invaluable pieces of wisdom gained through hard work, observation and good old fashioned experience.  

Adrian Bancilhon commenced his mining maintenance career in Western Australia though has enjoyed the last decade on Australia’s east coast. He has experience working with iron, ore, copper, aluminium, gold, and coal and has worked in roles from the shop floor up to the general manager of maintenance. With a perfectionist trait, he is never satisfied with ‘good enough’ and continually analyses and questions the status quo. There is a relentless quest for improvement, efficiency, safety and all done with a can-do attitude. Amongst this critical analysis is an appreciation of people, culture and practises unique to any mining organisation, and Adrian touches on the importance of being informed of these when starting any management relationship. Further to this, Adrian talks candidly about his worst experiences as a maintenance manager, a serious workplace accident, and the difficulties he has faced with general managers. Take 30 minutes out of your day to hear from Adrian and learn from his 30+ years of experience in mining maintenance. BOOKS WE MENTIONED: Leading Change by Dr John Kotter   LINKS: Adrian Bancilhon’s LinkedIn

Phil McMahon has a wealth of experience in maintenance and reliability.  After many years working across numerous industries, Phil came to an epiphany that no matter how great a system he had, it was the person maintaining the equipment that really mattered.  Delving deeper into his discovery, Phil studied Psychology at UNE to gain insight and understanding on how he could implement workplace systems whilst ensuring the focus was on the person doing the job. In this episode, Phil shares some of his experiences in the workplace and the changes he has seen when sites invest in the ‘human element’.  When we focus on what individuals are naturally inclined to do, they are empowered and able to work with purpose, thus producing better results. You can have a man maintain a piece of equipment without a system, but you can’t have a system maintain anything without the man. BOOK WE MENTIONED: Drive by Daniel H. Pink

Seldom do you come across mining maintenance managers with as many years of service, and as much variety of experience as our guest today. Leigh Gould, a semi-retired mining maintenance manager with well over 30 years experience and roles spanning nearly every continent in the world, discusses his vast know-how with Gerard in this episode. His career in maintenance management began alongside the introduction of computers in the early 1980s in Weipa, and he became heavily involved in the development of programmed maintenance. Over the years, he has enjoyed time in gold, copper, aluminium, iron and coal mining representing a rarely seen multi-elemental maintenance manager. Join Leigh and Gerard in their discussion of mining maintenance across all the elements, failure mode effect analysis and reliability centred maintenance, maintenance scheduling in the era of computational expanse, and dealing with resource-intensive root cause analysis.   LINKS: Leigh Gould on LinkedIn Bluefield 30 in 30 podcast website

With 47 years of experience since he started his apprenticeship, our guest today Tom Houston certainly has a lot of knowledge to share. An electrician by trade, Tom worked his way up through basically every role imaginable to move through to a maintenance manager position, and also senior management for central maintenance groups.   Tom was very interested in continuing study to better his skillset and has completed a great deal of post trade study. He has worked in production roles and health and safety roles and believes that his time on both sides of the fence has given him a good holistic understanding of how to structure a successful site and this has contributed to his successes throughout the years.   We’re sure that you will take plenty of learnings from this conversation and this will give you the knowledge to employ the insights learned here in your organizations to get more from your assets.   For more resources and information, head to the Bluefield Asset Management website.   To learn more about getting the most out of your assets, grab a copy of Gerard’s book Simplifying Mining Maintenance.  

We’re back over in Chile today with another Spanish language episode, to sit down with Alfredo Perez who has over 30 years of experience working in the mining industry and is the Bluefield business manager in Chile. Gerard has known Alfredo for quite some time since the days when they both worked for BHP. Alfredo has since worked for Codelco and Anglo in Chile. He is an asset category specialist which means he is on the supply side and was responsible for many years to select and procure mining equipment. This required a detailed analysis of the asset lifecycle. He has a particular love for ensuring that maintenance equipment is maintained properly and working effectively, and Alfredo loves to pass on his knowledge. We’re sure that you will take plenty of learnings from this conversation and this will give you the knowledge to employ the insights learned here in your organizations to get more from your assets. For more resources and information, head to the Bluefield Asset Management website. To learn more about getting the most out of your assets, grab a copy of Gerard’s book Simplifying Mining Maintenance.

We are joined today by Norm Doxanakis who has more than 30 years of experience in the mining industry, having worked in a variety of maintenance management roles across the globe in many different companies. He started from the shop floor and worked his way all the way up to the highest level in maintenance that you can go. Norm has always had a clear focus on building trust within the workplace, and that becomes clear from our chat on the podcast today. He emphasises the importance of physically going onsite, talking to the workers, and finding out what the pain points are. You can’t always rely on the numbers and measurements, you need to talk to your teams, and get to the bottom of any less obvious issues that could be causing inefficiencies. We’re sure that you will take plenty of learnings from this conversation and this will give you the knowledge to employ the insights learned here in your organizations to get more from your assets. For more resources and information, head to the Bluefield Asset Management website. To learn more about getting the most out of your assets, grab a copy of Gerard’s book Simplifying Mining Maintenance.

We're taking you to the other side of the world today as you'll notice this episode is in Spanish, to chat to a man with over 40 years experience working in the mining maintenance industry. Julio Sotella started his career from the workshop floor and then grew into leadership roles. He has worked in mobile mining equipment and also fixed plant maintenance. He has a very practical understanding of equipment reliability and knows how to achieve it. Our host, Gerard Wood met Julio when he was the mobile maintenance manager for Spence mine in Chile. Julio setup the Spence mine from scratch as a greenfield project and he developed a team and workshop that had the best culture around oil and fluids cleanliness of any mine in BHP at that stage. It was the only mine in BHP to receive Caterpillar 5 Star oil cleanliness accreditation. Gerard was the Global Practice Leader for Maintenance in BHP Base Metals at the time and Spence was one of the mines in this part of BHP. On the podcast today, Julio emphasises the importance of keeping your workplace and equipment clean, and the positive outcomes this will achieve in machinery reliability. In his younger years working in an Iron Ore mine with his father, Julio noticed how dirty everything was, and when questioning his father about this, it was made apparent that the work culture at that time was that the dirtier the job site, the better the job performance. Julio did his research looking at automotive industries in other parts of the world, and came to realise that the reverse was in fact true. A clean job site, made it possible to achieve better reliability outcomes among many other benefits. We’re sure that you will take plenty of learnings from this conversation and this will give you the knowledge to employ the insights learned here in your organizations to get more from your assets. For more resources and information, head to the Bluefield Asset Management website. To learn more about getting the most out of your assets, grab a copy of Gerard’s book Simplifying Mining Maintenance.

Our guest today, Ian Goodwin, has more than 40 years of experience in the mining industry having worked across the globe. Ian started his career in Western Australia's iron ore industry in the mid-70s, working up from the workshop floor through supervisory and management roles, and then crossing over into the supply function. Ian became a general manager for supply and moved to the US and then on to Canada to head up maintenance and supply for Ekati Diamond Mine. Ian then became General Manager for Ekati before moving back to Australia after 10 years in North America to lead the BHP Billiton global maintenance networks, where Ian was responsible in sharing best practices across BHP's global mining operations. After this time, Ian supported several areas of BHP as General Manager for assets before hanging up the laptop, or so he thought. He has been in high demand since retiring and starting his asset advisory and coaching services business. We’re sure that you will take plenty of learnings from this conversation and this will give you the knowledge to employ the insights learned here in your organizations to get more from your assets. For more resources and information, head to the Bluefield Asset Management website. To learn more about getting the most out of your assets, grab a copy of Gerard’s book Simplifying Mining Maintenance.

Eric Dousi has been in the mining and petrochemical industries for more than 30 years with vast experience around the globe in many different areas. He started out in the Merchant Navy, moved into petrochemicals, and then went back to University. His first official foray into the mining industry was through a role in the Global Maintenance Network after completing his degree and he has since gone on to become an expert and a leader in developing programs like FLAC, fuel, lube, air, and coolant cleanliness programs and operational readiness projects on major greenfield projects around the world. This varied background has given Eric the opportunity to look at how maintenance is done across several industries and acquire a broad experience base which has helped him succeed in his career. We’re sure that you will take plenty of learnings from this conversation and this will give you the knowledge to employ the insights learned here in your organizations to get more from your assets. For more resources and information, head to the Bluefield Asset Management website.

Today, we’re joined by Andy Malcolm who has more than 30 years of experience in mining, having worked across the globe in many maintenance roles from the shop floor, up to maintenance manager. He has worked across many different commodities and has seen the good, the bad and ugly within a range of fleets and working environments. We’re sure that you will take plenty of learnings from this conversation and this will give you the knowledge to employ the insights learned here in your organizations to get more from your assets. For more resources and information, head to the Bluefield Asset Management website.