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Debottlenecking
Looking for more volume? Helping you to achieve that is right in PIP’s sweet spot. We work with you to set up an ongoing, systematic process to identify, review, and then debottleneck your operations by eliminating the constraints which hold back production. This is done rapidly, through the line operations and in a way which doesn’t disrupt current production. It is done with extensive work on the ‘wiring’ of the business which helps to deliver rapid results, sustain them and continue to improve on them.
While no two engagements are the same, we have laid out below an overview of a ‘typical’ engagement with PIP to deliver extra throughput to your operations.
The Diagnostic
In the diagnostic, a team of PIP consultants will visit your facility to undertake a thorough review of current and potential performance along a number of dimensions.
A 2 week diagnostic is shown schematically below.
Our volume diagnostics are discussed in more detail in our newsletters on the topic. Please contact us at info@pipint.com for a copy.
For PIP “it’s all about delivering and sustaining the results” and for this reason we would very much like to support you and your organization to actually deliver the results. However, to ensure you have complete choice on whether to deliver and sustain the results with or without our support, the diagnostic is designed to ensure that, by the end of it, you and your people:
- understand and agree with the analysis
- understand and agree with the wiring review
- understand at the high level what needs to be done to deliver this
- agree that the targets are possible
This puts you and your team in a position where you can decide how to capture and sustain these results. Should you decide to partner with us for the delivery work, a typical approach might look like the one described below.
Delivering Concrete Results and building continuous improvement
When we assist organizations to deliver results and build a continuously improving organization, our people work in-the-line to support your line managers along 3 dimensions:
1) Managing an ideas pipeline: PIP has developed a set of tools and methodologies to drive and track the operational improvement ideas which, in combination with coaching and work on the business’ wiring, will deliver the increased volumes.
PIP has developed a gating approach which ensures that high value ideas with no or very low capital expenditures required are set up to succeed, then work and are sustained. The improvement team will continuously monitor and nurture the ideas and their individual owners as they move through the pipeline to become the new norm.
2) Strengthening the ‘Wiring’ of the organization: Wiring is the mechanics of management. It's the combination of an organisation's systems, processes, staff, competencies, disciplines, and the behaviours managers do and don't accept - which together, influence how an organisation will behave and therefore, how it will ultimately perform.
During the diagnostic, the management team will have highlighted aspects of the organisation’s wiring that are important to strengthen or alter as part of creating a more performance and results-driven organisation. Delivering this improved wiring will not only help bring about the cultural change and strengthen the execution capabilities of the employees on site, further supporting the successful outcome of the ideas described above.
For more information on wiring and its importance both in delivering and sustaining continuous improvement, please contact us at info@pipint.com for a copy of our articles on wiring.
3) Coaching for high performance and continuous improvement: The third leg of the framework is the coaching that PIP’s coaches pass on to your employees - managers/superintendents, front line managers and full time dedicated business improvement teams. The coaching is comprehensive, brings a blend of classroom and on-the-job coaching and is practically focused on how to manage operations for performance. If your operation is shift-based and front line coaching is important to deliver the results, our people will coach on-the-shift. All of the coaching and the training are interwoven with work on the ideas pipeline and wiring so coaching is focused on (and effectiveness tested against) delivering real results.
For more information on PIP’s approach to coaching and the University-accredited qualifications your people can earn through delivering results with PIP, please contact us for a copy of our newsletter on coaching and training.
Sample Overview of Typical Value Levers
The process PIP uses to debottleneck the operation tackles the root causes of the constraints. While the levers to pull will differ by situation, we describe a few below as examples.
Throughput rate (e.g. Mill grinding rate): Tonnes passing through primary, secondary or tertiary grinding per operating hour - driven by such things as improving blast fragmentation, variance of amperage draw on each mill, presentation of days that materials at each stage in the process are in specification etc.
Operating hours: Driving up operating hours by:
- reducing unplanned maintenance
- improving planned maintenance efficiency
- reducing unplanned operating downtime
Truck load factors: Ensuring they are high and not overly variable is a key to efficiently moving material and driving down cycle times per ton
Worker absenteeism: Developing and implementing tools, procedures and leading indicators to predict and decrease worker absenteeism which can result in bottleneck trucks or diggers not operating
Reducing scrap or yield loss: A large series of parameters in a circuit can impact recovery, such as particle size in the slurry, dissolved organic content, homogeneity of the feed, etc. – each of these is a lever which impacts recovery
Sales force: Tracking the impact of a sales force via the number of calls made, meetings had, proposals submitted, conversion of proposals to closed sales, margins on each sale, debtors days etc
Customer service response time: Ensuring that customer service organizations, whether in person or by phone, resolve issues fast enough (e.g. mortgage/credit card/loan application processing times, time to resolve call centre issues successfully, proportion of call centre calls fixed the first time)
Services and feed availability: The extent to which upstream feed, water, electricity, or finished product storage space are available can all also affect throughput. These too are tackled through a combination of ideas to solve root cause issues and wiring to improve the way KPIs are managed.
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