A Guide to Operational Readiness for Mining Assets

Operational Readiness is one of the most valuable investments you can make as a mining organisation. It sets your operation up for success and maximises the performance and lifecycle of your equipment. Here is everything you need to know about Operational Readiness in the mining industry.

Operational Readiness (sometimes referred to as Maintenance Readiness) is the cornerstone of maintenance excellence. Put simply, it is the foundational knowledge, strategy and processes that are put in place for new assets and equipment. The choice is simple: Are you going to run your equipment to an early failure, or are you are you going to support your asset for an optimised life?

When a new mine site is set up, or a new asset is commissioned on site, operational readiness is performed to ensure a complete maintenance system is in place for the operation. It provides a foundation for the maintenance and engineering departments to work on and optimise, as they gather lifecycle data after the asset is put to work.

Developed from a range of sources, Operational Readiness is a very detail oriented process incorporating information from OEM manuals, organisational standards, legislation, knowledge base from experts and similar equipment.

Whilst the process of Operational Readiness (or Maintenance Readiness) can be performed after a new plant or mine is in place, it is best performed before operations begin, ensuring that the processes and procedures are established from the very beginning.

This can look slightly different for each organisation, depending on  variables such as what stage the mine site is in, organisational and legislative requirements, and whether a maintenance team has already been established.

Generally, Operational Readiness for a new plant includes;

• Cataloguing of all relevant documentation to the asset/s
• Development of an asset hierarchy
• Failure Modes and Effects Criticality Analysis (FMECA)
• FMECA validation, including review of corrective and preventative actions.
• Operational analysis, to ensure the strategy is able to be implemented within your organisation.
• Maintenance work instruction development
• Master data generation
• Critical and material spares development
• Consumables stock development

And can sometimes include other elements, such as feasibility studies and asset functionality assessments or reliability modelling.

Operational Readiness affects mining equipment and organisational assets in a number of ways. It affects asset performance, maintenance strategies, return on investment on the cost of the asset, as well as maintenance team structure and activities.

Operational Readiness is the building block of your Computerised Maintenance Management System (CMMS) and maintenance Work Instructions (WI). Many mining organisations think that they are adequately performing Operational Readiness, when in reality their approach is ineffective.

They approach Operational Readiness as if it is a ‘tick box’ task and end up with insufficient work instructions and sub-par maintenance strategies, resulting in less-than-optimal asset performance.

When Operational Readiness is performed to a high standard, by experienced reliability engineers, the return on investment is seen right from the very first maintenance interval.

Operational Readiness is vital for mining organisations, for a multitude of different reasons, including Operational Health & Safety (OH&S). Under-maintained assets have more frequent failures and are more likely to cause injury or worse to operating staff.

Think of Operational Readiness as if you’ve purchased a new car – except, that car doesn’t come with sufficient manufacturer guidelines on how to maintain and service it.  Operational Readiness would look at that car and assess how frequently each component of the car needs servicing, how to perform that servicing, and how to tailor said servicing to the particular method in which you will be utilising the car.

Another reason Operational Readiness is so important in mining is because it extends the lifecycle of assets. Mining equipment is an investment for organisations; when significant financial resources are put behind an asset, there is an expectation for return on investment and the lifespan of the asset. Without the maintenance strategy and specific work instructions Operational Readiness provides, the asset could end up being decommissioned prematurely, due to a lack of preventative maintenance.

Essentially, performing Operational Readiness at the beginning of the lifespan of your site or asset allows you to meet organisational goals from the very moment that asset is used.  

When Operational Readiness is completed prior to production in mining, it is possible to see a far larger ROI from the process – up to 10 times more than if Operational Readiness is completed in retrospect after issues arise.

The truth is, Operational Readiness is a necessity for mining organisations. You can either make the investment upfront, or you do it at a later point, but end up paying far more to have that process completedafter equipment failures, unplanned breakdowns, and lost production time.

The major reasons that all mining organisations should consider doing Operational Readiness either prior to starting operations (for a greenfield site), or as soon as possible after taking over a brownfield site, are:

Unplanned failures and downtime can cost 3 to 5 times more to fix than planned maintenance – even without taking lost production into consideration. This is because parts may not be available, or you may need to go to a more expensive supplier – doing things urgently and reactively will always be more expensive in the long run.

Investing in Operational Readiness upfront, allows you to maximise the profit made from your assets and equipment. Not only are you extending the lifespan of the asset, but you are also relieving pressure from internal teams who instead of reacting to failures, can now do more preventative maintenance tasks.

Unplanned failures can also result in OH&S incidents, which cost on average $15,072 to organisations per serious incident claim – and that isn’t including the cost of fixing the failed equipment.

Rather than being forced to react and shut down the plant or asset for unplanned maintenance, Operational Readiness allows you to have the equipment and schedule required to tackle this in a preventative and planned manner. This includes having spare parts on site and ensuring that backup assets are available for critical assets.

Operational Readiness looks at mining equipment from a holistic perspective, as well as diving deep into each component and how it interacts within the ecosystem of the asset. Doing this ensures that the component life is optimised, and that the manner in which it interacts with and effects those around it is documented and understood.

Mistakes tend to compound over time in maintenance, and so asset components can quickly wear and affect those around them if over or under serviced. By completing an Operational Readiness project, you are tailoring all asset maintenance to your particular operating conditions, ensuring that each little item is included. This results in a comprehensive document, where items aren’t overlooked as being either “too small” to include, or being filed away in someone’s mind who will “remember” to do the task.  

An important factor to note is that what comes out of Operational Readiness is not meant to be a final maintenance strategy or set of Work Instructions. In a Continuous Improvement endeavour, Operational Readiness should be seen as a comprehensive baseline for the maintenance team responsible for that asset. Once in operation, the elements of Operational Readiness such as the Maintenance Strategy, Critical and Material Spares list and Work Instructions should be reviewed and optimised with the data from operation.

One of the most valuable things that you can have as a mining organisation is predictability. To be able to predict how an asset will perform, the standard it will perform to, and the costs associated with its operation is the gold standard. Operational Readiness encompasses all these things and allows you to plan from a resource, time and a financial point of view.

Operational Readiness can be used as a tool to develop internal guidelines and KPIs for mining equipment. This gives a solid baseline for asset performance.

Another thing that Operational Readiness can allow you to do is pre-emptively pick up on asset failure. By recognising the warning signs and completing corrective actions that are outlined during the operational readiness process, then you can mitigate any potential failures before they occur.

Operational Readiness can be used as a tool to develop internal guides and KPIs for equipment performance. This gives a solid baseline for asset performance, as well as cost projections for future maintenance, parts replacement and when an entire asset may need to be replaced.

When organisations don’t implement an Operational Readiness technique before mining operations commence, then their internal maintenance team is consequently pressured to develop an equipment maintenance strategy as they go. By having all of this detail ready to go before production starts, it ensures that firstly from an overarching perspective, the maintenance strategy has had the appropriate information gathered and considered, and secondly that the work instructions are detailed enough for the maintenance team to carry out correctly.

The other benefit Operational Readiness brings to maintenance teams is it allows them to understand why tasks are done, and how all asset components work together within their systems and sub-systems. Having this documented gives another layer of knowledge and understanding to internal maintenance staff. Operational Readiness can also reduce the frequency and amount of resources and time required to complete fault finding and Root Cause Analysis investigations.

When Operational Readiness is completed at the commission stage of a mine site, part of the scope of that readiness can be to ensure that legislation and any relevant industry standards are met operationally.

For organisations that may not have the appropriate resources with the knowledge base to complete this, or who may not have their maintenance team set up, this is a great reason to engage Reliability Consultants to assist in your Operational Readiness project.

As we have already touched on, not performing Operational Readiness for a newly commissioned (or newly taken over) mine site can have some major consequences, including:

Assets are business investments and need to be treated as such, not having a maintenance plan in place can ultimately result in a shortened asset lifespan. You wouldn’t buy a new car and then not adhere to the service schedule recommended by the manufacturer – and so we shouldn’t under-service mining equipment either.

Not only is it costlier to perform Operational Readiness after the site is established, but it is also costlier to perform maintenance and rectify failures once they have already occurred.

Unplanned failures incur several other ‘costs’ that are more than just financial, one of these is staff time and resourcing. When unplanned failure occur, staff members may need to be involved in a Root Cause Analysis (RCA) Investigation, or they may need to extract the asset from the breakdown site.

Internal staff then are forced to prioritise fixing the asset so that the plant doesn’t shut down.  Ultimately, this could result in the temporary closure of the mine. However, Operational Readiness would mitigate instances of unplanned breakdowns, and allow staff to focus on prevention and optimisation – rather than reacting and placing all available resources to ‘fight the fires.’

One of the biggest things that could impact mining organisations from not having Operational Readiness completed is the fact that they can no longer control asset maintenance and performance.

Unplanned breakdowns mean that maintenance staff may not be able to choose where or how they rectify the problem, resulting in a sub-optimal maintenance environment. The maintenance team may also lack control over the cost of the maintenance, and the length of the downtime.

Further to that, once the asset is back up and running, there is usually a backlog of minor and routine tasks to complete – which, if left uncomplete could result in further issues within that asset and its components.

Due to the nature of Operational Readiness and the level of detail required within the process, it is a good idea to engage external experts to assist.  It is a time-consuming process, which would see internal resources time taken up potentially for months at a time.

Whilst internal mine site staff are knowledgeable and also specialise in reliability, it may be the case that they only complete Operational Readiness on an asset once every 5 years. This means that to engage in the process, they may effectively have to retrain and re-familiarise themselves with the process and methodologies involved. However, external consultants do this every day and are experts in the area, saving time and providing highly specialised knowledge.

External consultants are particularly beneficial in instances where a maintenance team hasn’t been fully established yet, as production hasn’t started. They can even complete elements of the entire Operational Readiness process, before handing over to an internal team, once hired.

Alternatively, for a brownfield site, the benefit of external consultants comes from the fact that they hold no pre-conceptions about how often maintenance tasks are done within the organisation. For example, if bearings have traditionally been greased once every 12 months as an organisational policy, then that will likely be written into Operational Readiness documents by internal staff. An external consultant could come in with expertise and conduct extensive research, to discover that it is actually more beneficial to grease them every 6 months, essentially extending that components lifespan.

External consultants have the ability to look at Operational Readiness not just from a maintenance or operational perspective – but from a unique blend of both. They work diligently, and complete the tasks in full to a high standard – without any distractions, or being pulled away to work on other tasks. They also have access to specialised industry tools (such as ReliaSoft), which can ultimately enhance the outcomes of the process.

After Operational Readiness is completed, consultants can support the mine site and their internal staff until the maintenance team is functional. Return On Investment (ROI) on an Operational Readiness project can be seen immediately, and the full effects of it will be felt over the first year of operation.

When considering when to perform Operational Readiness for a new mine site, it’s important to consider that the entire process, depending on the level of detail required and the volume of assets, could take around 8 – 10 months to complete.

For a greenfield mine site, a good trigger to start engaging in the Operational Readiness process for business-critical assets is once a PO or contract for new equipment has been finalised. This allows adequate time for each of the activities within the Operational Readiness process to be completed to a high standard.

For a brownfield mine site, it is useful to engage in an Operational Readiness process as soon as you have taken over the site. This will ensure peace of mind that all operations are to your organisation’s level of maintenance, and can ensure due dilligence from an OH&S perspective.  

The major difference between Operational Readiness and a FMECA, or even a maintenance strategy, is when the process is completed. Operational Readiness occurs at the beginning of the asset’s life within your organisation, whereas a FMECA or maintenance strategy can be done to optimise the Operational Readiness activities, utilising life data from asset operation.

The other key difference is that Operational Readiness is far more in depth than any singular process such as a FMECA. Operational Readiness may even include a FMECA in the process, but dives deeper into the details and outputs from the process.

Operational Readiness takes longer to complete, but is a far superior process to a FMECA. Because the equipment is unknown to the organisation, more research and collaboration with experts (such as the Original Equipment Manufacturer or OEM) to get the information required. It tends to include a greater scope of information, particularly because there is no pre-existing understanding of the asset within the organisation prior to performing Operational Readiness. Completing a comprehensive Ops Readiness program provides confidence to the Maintenance Manager that all the information and parts are ready to support the commissioned asset