COST & PRODUCTIVITY DIAGNOSTIC

CLIENT

Australian Gold Mine

OBJECTIVE

Xenco was engaged to conduct a review of operational performance based on data and observations at an Australian Gold Mine. The goal was to identify opportunities for enhancing productivity and reducing the cost per ounce of gold.

THE CHALLENGES

The team experienced minor challenges with data collection, but overall the client provided a supportive and cooperative engagement across the site.

Offsite

• Obtaining data from multiple systems that didn’t interact with each other.
• Translating data into a universal format for analysis.

Onsite

• Streamlining data verification across departments and stakeholders.
• Developing cohesive themes for business integration.

APPROACH

Xenco commenced with a standard diagnostic activity involving remote data analysis to identify themes. This was followed by onsite verification activities with key stakeholders. This resulted in providing the client with a high-level roadmap of short and long-term initiatives to enhance productivity and reduce cost per ounce. The goal was to maintain a line of sight from organisational objectives through to daily activities, with a focus on these areas:

• Historical performance and areas of cost inefficiency
• Cost drivers
• Latent capacity within the value chain
• Productivities and how their input impacts performance
• Critical metrics/KPIs and how they are routinely managed to drive behaviours and improvement.

Workstreams that were assessed were: Mine Planning, Mining, Asset Management, Processing, and Cost Drivers.

OUR RESULT

The diagnostic review of the site offered valuable insights and the recommendations presented to the client covered several opportunities for enhancing operations and reducing the cost per ounce of gold. Recommendations were grouped into common themes:

• Operations
• Metallurgy
• Contracts
• Reliability
• Shutdown
• Fleet Management

These findings held the potential for a 35% revenue boost and 20% cost per ounce reduction, leading to 10% overall cost savings. The client was impressed with the detailed diagnostics and decided to expand the project scope to include a broader implementation phase.