State of outsourcing in the mining industry : an overview

There is limited research on the topic of outsourcing in the mining industry. The purpose of the study is to fill this gap and gain a general understanding of the state of outsourcing in the mining industry. The study seeks to answer basic questions such as how prevalent is outsourcing, what activities are being outsourced and why they are outsourcing. Upon surveying the upper management (e.g. CEOs and COOs) of 106 primarily Canadian mining companies with global operations, it became evident that outsourcing is widespread among both juniors and large mining companies. Some 89.7% of mining companies outsource or have outsourced in the past. Mining companies outsource mining more than mineral processing because mineral processing is a revenue generator and require large investments, which outsourcing suppliers generally do not have. Other popular activities for outsourcing include construction during mining operations. The biggest reason for outsourcing is access to specialized competencies, including skilled labour, followed by flexibility such adapting to seasonality, changes in geology and commodity prices. According to the criteria created by Quinn and Hilmer (1994), mining and mineral processing are not core competencies for mining companies and should be evaluated carefully for outsourcing although some 92.1% of mining companies perceive these activities as being core competencies. The seven traits of core competency put forward by Quinn and Hilmer were that they are: based on skills and intellectual property in the company; create flexibility; one of the top three capabilities of the company; fills a gap in the industry; performed better than providers; shareholders/customers care about them; and embedded in company processes. None of the traits reached the 92.1% agreement (to match the mining companies’ perception) necessary to be a core competency and therefore, mining and mineral processing are not core competencies for mining companies.Applied Science, Faculty ofMining Engineering, Keevil Institute ofGraduat

Open-pit mining auto transport data processing

Increasing the efficiency of mining dump trucks is impossible without a scientific assessment of the level of organization of quarry technological processes, operating conditions and quality indicators. To evaluate the operational parameters of dump trucks for the open-pit mining of Erdenet Mining Corporation of Mongolia, the statistics derived from the cycling of six selected machines with different technical conditions, transporting to the processing plant and low-grade waste dump in summer and winter, were processed. The operating parameters of the six trucks which were measured and studied along the direction selected to fully represent the entire route of the mine, vary widely. The initial data of the PITRAM were unordered and according to the first data, the start and end times of a full cycle were calculated using the corresponding values of subsequent data, the amount of fuel consumed in one complete cycle and the cycle time duration of one complete route. Factors are taken into account and a new large dataset is created to evaluate the operating parameters of dump trucks