In the high-pressure world of mining, being in the “hot seat” is usually something to be avoided. But at the AMMAN’s Batu Hijau mine in West Sumbawa, Indonesia, the shovel operators and haul-truck drivers embrace the challenge and thrive in their roles for safe production.
A “hot seat” at AMMAN’s Batu Hijau mine is not a seat that’s uncomfortably warm. It refers to a practice called “hot seating”, in which operators starting their shifts are assigned to their item of equipment and present to the allocated location to swap out the previous operator, maintaining a continued production flow.
Hot seating differs significantly from previous shift-change procedures, which could leave shovels and haul-trucks unused for up to 90 minutes a day.
In response, AMMAN adopted a forward-thinking approach taking on a bold challenge to redesign and resource the shift-change practices. The specific challenge was to take a typical shift-change from 45 minutes down to a low as safely practical.
Additional Man-Haulers were purchased to allow more hot seat locations to be accessed directly without requiring multiple stops, this sees these units pick up the workforce and take them directly to the location to change over with the off-coming shift. Man-Haulers and Light Vehicles are preprogrammed with their assigned Shovels and Haul Truck Hot Seat lay downs, all the on coming shift needs to do is check their assignment and board the allocated transport to the working location.
This proved to be very beneficial with a significant shift-change downtime reduction from 45 minutes to just 3.7 minutes, resulting in an 92% efficiency improvement.
The switch to hot seating at Batu Hijau demonstrates that with the right approach, even the most challenging situations can be turned into opportunities for performance growth. It reaffirms that our ability to adapt and #PushingLimi7s is critical to becoming a transformative organization, creating a #LegacyofBest.
