- To participate in the 911Metallurgist Forums, be sure to JOIN & LOGIN
- Use Add New Topic to ask a New Question/Discussion about Mineral Processing or Laboratory Work.
- OR Select a Topic that Interests you.
- Use Add Reply = to Reply/Participate in a Topic/Discussion (most frequent).
Using Add Reply allows you to Attach Images or PDF files and provide a more complete input. - Use Add Comment = to comment on someone else’s Reply in an already active Topic/Discussion.
Why Concentrator Process Engineering (Met) Teams? – Promoting necessary and critical dialogues (3 replies)
If those from the trenches get typing, this could be a very long topic.
Many do not have these dialogues.
Other do have these dialogues in vain. A friend of mine calls it Metallurgical Therapy.
If the dialogue takes place in with a Manager in place because of Peter's Principle, and he has surrounded himself by younger version of himself, the dialogue is in vain. It feels good. Objective are stated, not follow up, lip service city.
The dialogue needs to take place under solid mentor-ship, and that is rare today.
Mineral Processing today mirror how the Romans loss of the recipe for concrete.
Long gone are the days of MIM, Cominco, INCO and their TRUE E.I.T. programs.
I stated with Cominco in 1990. My now retired mentor use to tell us during these talkswe needed to watch Days of Thunder to best see a live example of how we needed to work together to succeed.
Mill Operations = The driver (Tom Cruise)
Mill Maintenance = The pit crew (Robert Duval)
Metallurgy Department = The pit technical team (Robert Duval and friends)
Manager = Team Owner (Randy Quaid)
Here is a great dialogue showing the common disconnect within a milling operation. The same would apply in a mine.
Trust & communication.
In short, the dialogue is only of value if the people around the table have not lost the recipe to cement.
https://www.911metallurgist.com/blog/how-to-become-a-metallurgist
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y_tCHxIXnEU
Use the Social Share Bar on the Left. Tell everyone you can about https://www.911metallurgist.com/metallurgy/ It's FREE & GOOD.
Thanks for that.
These two papers in the recent publication from AusIMM provide a good summary discussion of the issues with plant metallurgical teams.
Munro, P.D. and Tilyard, P.A., Back to the future – why change doesn’t necessarily mean progress, We Are Metallurgists, Not Magicians: Landmark Papers by Practicing Metallurgists, Eds. D. Pollard, G. Dunlop, and J. Herzig, AusIMM, 2017, 11-18.
Munro, P.D., Back to the future – still on the dark side, We Are Metallurgists, Not Magicians: Landmark Papers by Practicing Metallurgists, Eds. D. Pollard, G. Dunlop, and J. Herzig, AusIMM, 2017, 19-26.
Peter Munro’s talk for the latter is available at:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ruJETGwFdK0
It’s well worth watching for issues addressed, e.g.,
- Coverage “Metallurgists – Are they needed?”. The question asked is ‘do mineral processing engineers at sites add value?’. The answer suggests not and provides some alternatives.
- Concluding thoughts are provided on personal development. The individual is largely in charge of what happens for them.
'Hi Bob
About that necessary Trust: you know it is earned by the metallurgist spending significant time on the operating floor, in his met lab, and communicating findings.
Not behind a computer as too many do. Holding a University Degree, is not the ticket to trust.
Bob, I had not watched this talk before. I really like the technical staff "New Model". I proposed this to a few of my clients. It is funny how hard it is to sell. The GM has a hard time believing he can run his operation with the classic group of alchemist.
How can we operate without metallurgists? I made my client understand that worst than no advice, is bad advice.
Only 1 of my client went for it. After difficult human housecleaning, tasks were reallocated to the required skill level. A young, SMART, HARDWORKING metallurgist was hired. He was mentored by an outsider (me). He was trained to correctly do plant survey, lab float tests and graduated from metcomconsulting.com
It turns out the young was also an Excel statistical analysis guru.
At the end, 3 yrs later, this ship is sailing straight and I have very little involvement anymore other than the odd email verifying if an idea is valid or not.
Use the Social Share Bar on the Left. Tell everyone you can about https://www.911metallurgist.com/metallurgy/ It's FREE & GOOD.
Previously I have written about competency expectations for Mineral Processing Engineers and the basis for these expectations.
https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/mineral-processing-engineer-competency-expectations-robert-seitz/
The goal of this note is to promote dialogue supporting improvement of the Concentrator Process Engineering function (Met Teams) and, in turn, supporting these competency expectations.
Mines and Mills exist to generate maximum value. However, for many reasons the unifying focus which should follow from value maximization as a goal is all too often lost. A major source of this loss of focus includes believing everyone shares a common set of expectations and understanding of the mill working environment and people’s competencies. In fact, such is not the case.
Plant teams exist to cover the functions necessary to support value creation, e.g.,
These functions work across various time domains, from in the moment, to the medium term, to the longer term. Retaining a value focus we are left with Operations being the area which all other areas should support, of course recognizing attention to Safety, Health and the Environment.
There is an important set of dialogues which should occur in relation to establishing and maintaining common concentrator goals and working across and within functions, but rarely seems to. This includes:
These dialogues are not one-off. It’s essential to continue the dialogue or the mutual understanding and agreement concerning expectations is lost over time, due to human memory, staff turnover, etc.
The lack of dialogue to establish and vet a set of common expectations results in significant value loss. This is often apparent when we explore the reasons why people are overworked and important activities are not being completed across organization levels and functions. Operations, Maintenance, Engineering, Mineral Processing, and Project groups are left wondering why others are seemingly failing to deliver on expectations. However, there are very few Concentrators with well-defined, well documented, and well communicated and understood expectation standards.
I have had many opportunities to explore this matter, across many sites globally. The lack of well defined, documented, and understood expectations is nearly universal. Further, the subject is noticeably absent from internal discussion at Concentrators. Given this near universal failure to discuss expectations the lack of mineral processing literature covering this subject is no surprise. For example, there is a mere two page section devoted to this the 1985 SME Mineral Process Handbook (Michaelson et al., 1985). Recently Tilyard and Munro (2017) and Tilyard (2017) have discussed in some detail the failings of the mineral processing function at most milling operations, and outlined expectations for Metallurgical Teams within concentrators. These articles are worth obtaining and reflecting on by all mineral processing engineers regardless of level of experience.
Some questions for readers:
Reference
Michaelson, S.D., Lagergren, M.A., and Speers, E.C., 4. Staff Functions, Section 35. Organization and Safety, SME Mineral Processing Handbook, Ed. N.L. Weiss, SME, 1985, 35-14 to 35-15.
Munro, P.D. and Tilyard, P.A., Back to the future – why change doesn’t necessarily mean progress, We Are Metallurgists, Not Magicians: Landmark Papers by Practicing Metallurgists, Eds. D. Pollard, G. Dunlop, and J. Herzig, AusIMM, 2017, 11-18.
Tilyard, P.A., Back to the future – still on the dark side, We Are Metallurgists, Not Magicians: Landmark Papers by Practicing Metallurgists, Eds. D. Pollard, G. Dunlop, and J. Herzig, AusIMM, 2017, 19-26.