Optimizing Maintenance Practices For Organizational Goals: A Case Study Of A Copper Mine

The assignment case addresses the linkage between maintenance practices and organizational goals. The case study presents a copper mine with particular issues related to its management of maintenance.

In the mining area it is not unusual for maintenance to take up 50% or more of operating expenditure. There is potential for significant benefit from optimizing maintenance practices with respect to the organizational goal (assumed to maximize shareholder value). 

The assignment involves the creation of an Intermediate Objectives Map which relates CSFs to the goal of maintenance (you need to give some thought to what the goal of maintenance is in the "TOC World". Using this IO Map you then can define the relevant UDEs to start your CRT (current Reality Tree). Once you have completed the CRT you should have a good idea of the root cause and fundamental conflict in the way that the mine manages maintenance. You can then propose an injection to resolve the basic conflict. 

Purpose of the Case Study

Purpose of the Case Study

XYZ Company is part of the world's Agenda 2030 which is all about Sustainable Development and the goals associated with the same; also known as the Sustainable Development Goals. The agenda that was initiated by the UN is all about the action plan of the world with regards to economic development and environmental sustainability. As the leading mining industry in Chile, it is our belief that XYZ Company can ensure that significant physical, human, financial and technological resources are mobilized to attain the SDGs (Paper, 2016). Since the economic activity of mining happens to be a global industry, our sole purpose is to manage the sector to ensure global economic growth, to create jobs, be at the forefront of innovation spurring, and promote both infrastructural development and investment at a scale that is game-changing. We have ensured that we are at a position of mapping linkages between SDGs and mining and also incorporated SDGs which are relevant to our business operations. By so doing XYZ Company has validated its efforts and ensured that new ideas are spark into the mining environment. We have also ensured the success of our operations by forming a partnership with the government of Chile, the civil society and communities around the mining site, and the private sector too. All the aspects have spun actions within the formed partnerships resulting into the leveraging of the power of transformation brought by the collaborations (Paper, 2016). As mentioned above the overall objectives of   XYZ Company, are in line with the Sustainable Development Goals. The objectives are:

1. To ensure that significant physical, human, financial, and technological resources are mobilized to attain the SDGs
2. Because the economic activity of mining happens to be a global industry, XYZ Company sole purpose is to manage the entire sector.

• To ensure global economic growth

1. To create jobs
2. To be at the forefront of innovation spurring
3. To promote both infrastructural development and investment at a scale that is game-changing.

We have ensured that we are at a position of mapping linkages between SDGs and mining and also incorporated SDGs which are relevant to our business operations. By so doing, XYZ Company has validated its efforts and ensured that new ideas are spark into the mining environment (Paper, 2016).

At the beginning of the financial year 2017, a new CEO was brought into the corporation. He decided to incorporate a new mechanism towards the mining process to ensure that the whole process is efficient and less costly. The board is yet to approve the efficiency of her mechanism and instead, given the CEO six months to prove the level of effectiveness of his method of mining. However, apart from just proving the efficiency of the injection method, the CEO also proposed that there are other five core technologies for mineral exploration that may be useful in future advancements. However, the success rate of the exploration process may continue to improve.  With the improved technological methods for research, unique resources are likely to reverse the trend. On the contrary, these alternative resources happen to have been discovered. The resources are just awaiting new methods of exploitation. The core areas requiring new technologies are:

1. Seismic areas

This area involves the utilization of human-made waves that are acoustic and naturally occurring waves to determine the underlying geologic form as a core tool used to achieve exploration success (Cassiani, 2007). Also, technical advances may also be explored in areas of ultrahigh density acquisition technologies. Such could facilitate the advancements in data processing. Such methods could improve the resolution of seismic waves.

1. Electromagnetism of Controlled Sources

Scene Occurrence

This process happens to be putting into use, contrasting resistivity existing between water-saturated and hydrocarbon-saturated reservoirs. Such variation is used to identify hydrocarbon that is accumulated on the surface (Cassiani, 2007).

One such injection methods used in mining activities is the hydraulic fracturing. The hydraulic fracturing technology is a newer technology that has been adopted in the past to help in improving the economy of the mineral producing countries. The improved technology that is replaced by the old one is more efficient and effective. It ensures that the price of production is kept low hence leading to high profits (Jinxing, 2017). Mineralogy is, therefore, one of the subjects of great importance in geology within Chile. It deals with the study of the chemical formation and crystal structure together with the physical properties of minerals. Some study would include classification of minerals and geographic distribution across the earth. Mineralogy influences reservoir wettability via contact angle between the water particle and the crystals of the minerals making up the tank. From an equation in which R represents the roughness of the reservoir and also known as the ratio of the surface area of the crystals of the rock making up the pool, the angle made with the horizontal in a case of contact is the apparent contact angle (Dews, 2015). The obvious problem with water drops on rough reservoir surfaces is that the pressure at such reduction surfaces varies with height in agreement with the force of gravity. In any case, the solid surface is wetted by the liquid so that bulk gets retained in the surface groove of the reservoir, the receding interface and the apparent angle of contact will be microscopic. Any drop with little intrinsic angle will if in any case; it gets set on the grooves of infinite length (Dews, 2015).   

Table showing the problems and decisions made to solve them

One crucial factor to consider is that machines are prone to periodic breakdowns. You can forecast in a shear way what component would break down and how it will break. However, the aspect of the breakdown is what promotes the issue of maintenance. Maintenance is, therefore, the activity charged with ensuring that the machines or equipment are restored to their original designs, and their efficiencies restored as well. When the company decides to perform maintenance activities, the basic assumption made is that economically, the process of maintenance has far fetching benefits compared to other alternatives.

There are different categories of failure patterns. They include:

1. Bathtub

This pattern claims that an age limit response towards machine replacement is the key to situations where there is a high risk of failure after an overhaul which is then followed by a constant rate of failure which ultimately leads to permanent damage.

1. Wear Out

In this case, the machine experiences a constant failure rate than the occurrence of a pronounced region of wear out advances. In this occasion, the order is age limit replacement.

1. Fatigue

Refers to an increasing rate of failure that comes without a particular wear-out age. The replacement of such equipment, in this case, isn't justifiable.

Background

All the patterns highlighted are related to the age of the equipment and thus account for around 11% of the total failures that XYZ Company, would represent.

There are three kinds of maintenance practices likely to be undertaken by XYZ Company. Such practices include:

1. Run-to-failure
2. Preventative

• Predictive

On the contrary, there is a variation on the themes of maintenance which needs an explanation on the assurance that confusion is avoided. The variations allow the existence of a fourth category which is the “proactive practice.” This practice is a combination of predictive and preventative forms of practice.

It doesn’t matter the kind of maintenance performed on given equipment. What matter is the failure pattern of that equipment, the tied consequences, and the real purpose of the equipment? This kind of approach is, therefore, a design of maintenance for establishing a minimum level that the failure pattern and use of equipment match with the maintenance regimen. There are some following questions that define the RCM process. Such questions include:

1. What are the performance standards and purpose of the items?
2. The item can fail to provide its functions in what ways?
3. Which events result in what failure?

If the project was to be implemented, there are some factors especially economical and physical that would delay the decommissioning of the mineral reservoirs. According to researchers, the most political problem that acts a challenge to decommissioning of the tank is the fact that no funds are allocated to the companies hence no money to settle the operations of the reservoir (Paper, 2016). Since this company promotes big projects that might influence the economy of a country, the government of Chile will mostly get involved in the decision-making process and provide a license for operation. As such, the decision of the procedures to be used during operation is not necessarily made by the contractors and engineers at a site but also the government. The processes of consulting the government usually take time as several procedures have to be followed before the work begins (Martin, 2017).

The involvement of, XYZ Company in mining activities, provides sub-system framework. However, carrying out maintenance activities provides a sub-sub-system framework that is composed of activities within the mining process. Systematic thinking is, therefore, the art of recognizing that systems behave in a manner that influences how they perform. The behaviors originate from the interdependencies of systems and the components making them. The linkages are thus complicated yet driven by the components of the system.

Conclusion

 The significance of a sustainable maintenance structural design for is only likely to XYZ Company remain that way if responsible operations are practiced. The company mines the ores at a resources measurement of 150mt to produce 1% of copper. The waste collected from the mining process gets relocated to another site that is otherwise considered sterile. However, the copper mining process is likely to face several setbacks which would otherwise solicit the maintenance of the whole system (Paper, 2016).

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