If one employee who is Empowered to Act can make a positive change in how a site safely operates, imagine what an entire workforce that is Empowered to Act can do.
Thankfully, there’s no imagination needed – just look at Freeport-McMoRan employees.
Across the company’s operations, they are showing the value of the Freeport Edge behavior Empowered to Act by taking action to help achieve the company’s goals with the full support and encouragement of all levels of leadership.
Confidence in taking action
The fourth of the five fundamental Freeport Edge behaviors, Empowered to Act, means employees understand the company's vision and feel confident taking actions to safely achieve ambitious goals.
They understand how their roles connect to the business, are confident making decisions, knowing they’re supported by their leaders – and are encouraged to innovate and expected to collaborate to creatively solve problems.
Below are cases from the Empowered to Act files of Chino, Climax and Bagdad operations.
The case of the digital wizard
The mere mention of forms, data, spreadsheets and programs is enough to make many mere mortals either cower or doze off. So, when a digital wizard like Aaron Cortado comes along, his seemingly superhuman data services get snapped up far and wide.
Cortado, Senior Industrial Hygiene Supervisor for Chino and Tyrone, had taken his own initiative to learn a data visualization software program called Power BI to better schedule and track medical screenings for employees. He quickly learned that using the program reduced the time it took to enter, crunch and analyze relevant data from two hours a day to two hours a week. Word got out, and Cortado was subsequently drafted to help others grappling with the program.
He volunteered his time to assist the Transformation Office with developing the pilot of a Freeport Edge engagement survey. His skills helped connect to the bigger picture, assisting the team to think creatively about how to track Freeport Edge habits and behavior progress within sites and functional areas. He also leveraged innovative visuals within Power BI to help reflect Freeport Edge’s growth and engagement journey. Cortado’s collaboration with the Transformation Office and sites helped refine third-quarter requirements, as work progresses with MIS to further the company’s Freeport Edge engagement survey capability.
“What Power BI allows you to do is essentially pull all these multiple forms and documents from different resources into one database, so you can visualize that data, see where people are, know where divisions are and be able to make educated decisions on how we go forward and improve,” he said.
Cortado can make a click or two to manipulate and present data, turning spreadsheets full of numbers into easily understandable trends and insights.
Cortado, who learned the new program on his own time, agreed that the Freeport Edge behaviors complement each other.
“The key for me was that I realized that this was going to be a great way to Pursue Value, not only because of the time saved working with data but also because of the better decisions so many departments can make,” Cortado said.
The case of the missing document Mills are powered by enormous amounts of electricity, which require careful procedures to keep everyone safe.
On a recent nightshift scheduled shutdown at Climax mill, Russ Gonzales, Mill Operator I, and Michael Yudnich, Mill Operator II, were going to lock out on a piece equipment at a lockout station that had been worked on during dayshift.
The equipment had been properly locked out; however, the signed and dated paperwork to verify what equipment and who did the lockout was missing. The equipment likely was safe, but because the documentation was missing, the operators could not confirm that to be the case. They did not put their locks on the lockbox and performed a different task for the shift, which was exactly the right thing to do, said Katie Lyons, Metallurgist II and Mill Operations Supervisor-Climax.
“What was significant to me was they didn’t just stop the job,” Lyons said. “They stopped the job and recognized the deficiencies in the process. We set up a meeting and collaborated with other departments to determine how to proceed in that situation. They took the initiative to update procedures so that if this happens again in the future, we will know what to do.”
The way Lyons, Dickson Pongrekun, Mill Operations Superintendent, and Mark Mansuetti, Mill Manager, responded to their front-line employees’ concerns and took quick action was pretty significant to Vicki Seppala, General Manager-Climax.
“They were Empowered to Act. The mill area is a high-energy environment, and these front-line employees and the mill team worked together on updating some important procedures to move forward safely,” Seppala said.
The case of the magical haul truck load
The idea for Bagdad 240 first came to Ken Stevens, Supervisor-Mine Operations, more than 10 years ago while working with a contractor who was using a fleet of 35-ton trucks to help Bagdad’s fleet of 260-ton trucks move a waste pile.
“Their dirt boss would call in their tons to dispatch, and that contractor would match us ton-for-ton with those little trucks every single day, because they could drive so much faster and make so many more trips,” Stevens said.
The gears started grinding in Stevens’ inherently empowered head. Why had Bagdad always loaded 260 tons when the truck manufacturer specified 240? What was the magic number that delivered the most ore with the quickest runs, the best fuel mileage and the least amount of wear and tear on the trucks?
Stevens took his idea to previous mine management and was twice rebuffed. And as to the question of why Bagdad always ran 260-ton loads, no one had an answer other than “because that’s how we’ve always done it here,” said Jewel Sakyi, Mine Engineer I-Bagdad, and Stevens’ partner on the project.
“For me, it’s about questioning your practices to look for improvement rather than just doing what has always been done,” Sakyi said.
It was in fact a Freeport Edge alignment meeting that prompted Stevens to take a third crack at pitching his plan. This time, he convinced leadership and gained Sakyi as a consultant.
Considering it’s in the project name and the manufacturer’s specs, it’s not exactly a spoiler that the magic number appears to be 240. Though the project will undergo extensive modeling and testing to prove out all aspects, actual field tests have shown that when trucks are 20 tons more svelte, the same fleet makes more trips that ultimately deliver more ore – while also sparing the trucks the extra wear and tear of carrying that extra 20 tons in the rear, so to speak.
“To me, it was important, because I've worked here a long time and I’d like to contribute something, so when they said they were really looking for ideas and they would even let you fail because that would be a learning, I took it as an opportunity,” Stevens said. “They really meant what they said and gave the idea a chance, and now we’re getting the chance to prove it.”
Sign up for classes: The Transformation Office has a variety of agile training to help employees learn more about Freeport Edge behaviors, including a class on Empowered to Act. Register here.